South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Barbara Slavin writes for Al Jazeera America on talks in Geneva between Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif:
Before meeting this week in Geneva with Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said he hoped to accelerate the drawn-out negotiations over a comprehensive nuclear deal.
While Zarif did not specify the reason for expediting talks, pressures have been mounting in both countries from skeptics and outright opponents of an agreement. If the spoilers succeed in preventing a deal, the result could be an escalatory spiral of retaliatory measures.
In the U.S. Congress, sponsors are lining up behind legislation limiting the foreign policy prerogatives of the executive branch. One bill, a revised version of legislation introduced in the last Congress by Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., but never voted on, threatens to restore restrictions on Iran’s battered energy sector if no comprehensive agreement is reached by July 6.