CNN
Two "senior officials" from the United States and Iran "had a meeting on the margins" of the Geneva talks on Iran's nuclear program, U.S. spokesman Robert Wood told CNN on Thursday.
Wood wouldn't say who sat down on the sidelines of the discussion, but the encounter is regarded as the first face to face discussion between Iran and the United States over the nuclear issue.
William J. Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, is leading the U.S. delegation, and Saeed Jalili, Iran's nuclear negotiator, is representing his country at the meeting.
The Geneva talks coincide with the recent revelation that Iran was building a second uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom.
Click here to keep reading and find out more about Iran's nuclear sites.
Hamid Dabashi
Special to CNN
One of the most memorable episodes of the U.S. presidential election of 2008 was the much-publicized September 2008 interview that CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric did with Republican vice presidential candidate and then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Quite a number of embarrassing revelations dawned on the American presidential election scene after that interview, including the fact that the person potentially a heartbeat away from U.S. presidency could not name a single newspaper or magazine that she regularly read.
The interview turned out to be so crucial a piece in the course of the presidential campaign that it garnered for Couric the much coveted Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism, with the judges considering that interview a "defining moment in the 2008 presidential campaign."
As fate would have it exactly a year after that fateful interview, Katie Couric was destined to have an embarrassing Sarah Palin moment of her own.
In the course of a much anticipated interview with the belligerent Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Couric raised the all-important murder of Neda Aqa Soltan while discussing post-election violence in Iran - which Ahmadinejad dismissed as an unfortunate event that he said occurred because of chaos instigated by the United States and United Kingdom.
John King | BIO
CNN Chief National Correspondent
Anchor, State of the Union
It is a week that will see a potentially defining test in the health care debate, and yet those negotiations are likely to be overshadowed by a set in which Iran has a seat at the table and at which the administration's new claim of leverage in the nuclear standoff with Iran will be put to the test.
"Prove it," was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's to-the-point refrain when asked on the CBS program "Face the Nation" about Iran's claims its newly disclosed underground nuclear facility was for peaceful purposes and that the international outrage was much ado about nothing.
Massimo Calabresi
Time
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned President Barack Obama against pressing Tehran about new revelations that Iran has been constructing a secret uranium-enrichment plant. "If I were Obama's adviser, I would definitely advise him to refrain making this statement because it is definitely a mistake," Ahmadinejad told TIME in New York on Friday. "It would definitively be a mistake." His comment came as President Obama, speaking at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, made a dramatic announcement that Iran has been constructing a second uranium-enrichment facility whose existence had been kept secret in violation of the non-proliferation agreements to which Tehran is a signatory.
Flanked by Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama warned that Iran would be held accountable if it failed to live up to its international obligations. Fearing imminent disclosure of the plant being built into a mountain near the seminary city of Qom, the Iranians had earlier this week written to the International Atomic Energy Agency to confirm its existence.
Tom Foreman | Bio
AC360° Correspondent
I once received an anonymous call at the height of a major trial. A deep baritone, with a measured cadence of confidence spoke. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who else to call. I believe I have proof of jury tampering.”
“Really?” I responded, my ears pricking up like Spock on a date.
He went on for several minutes describing how the deliberations had been apparently slanted for acquittal by one juror. His information seemed rock solid, his knowledge of the case thorough. Then the bombshell. “How is this happening?” I asked.
“He’s using below-the-horizon surveillance and mind control particle beams.”
That’s the problem with some lunatics. They are unreliably zany. One minute they can be talking about authentic issues in an informed and reasonable way; and the next moment their eyes grow wide, and they lean forward to add, “And it’s all the Jews’ fault!” Such is the case with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran. This week in front of the United Nations he displayed precisely the qualities that most concern the sane leaders of other countries, notably the United States.
Program Note: Tune in tonight to hear from Reza Aslan on AC360° at 10p.m. ET.
Reza Aslan
The Daily Beast
Iran’s presumptive president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, heads to New York today to once again address the United Nations General Assembly. And once again, he has prefaced his address to the world body with yet another jibe at Holocaust history.
Last Friday, during Iran’s annual Jerusalem Day festivities—an occasion for Iranians to show solidarity with Palestinians—Ahmadinejad told an assembled crowd at the University of Tehran that “the pretext for establishing the Zionist regime is a lie ... a lie which relies on an unreliable claim.”
“The occupation of Palestine has nothing to do with the Holocaust,” Ahmadinejad continued. “The very existence of this regime is an insult to the dignity of the people, but it won't last long. The Israeli regime’s days are numbered and it is on its way to collapse. This regime is dying. Fighting it is a national and religious duty. The West has launched the myth of the Holocaust but it’s a lie.”
Right on cue, the U.S. media went into hysterics—“Ahmadinejad Denies Holocaust… Again!” was the headline at The Daily Beast—just as Ahmadinejad hoped they would.
World Public Opinion.org
A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of Iranians finds that six in 10 favor restoration of diplomatic relations between their country and the United States, a stance that is directly at odds with the position the Iranian government has held for three decades. A similar number favor direct talks.
However, Iranians do not appear to share the international infatuation with Barack Obama. Only 16 percent say that have confidence in him to do the right thing in world affairs. This is lower than any of the 20 countries polled by WPO on this question in the spring. Despite his recent speech in Cairo, where Obama stressed that he respects Islam, only a quarter of Iranians are convinced he does. And three in four (77%) continue to have an unfavorable view of the United States government.
"While the majority of Iranian people are ready to do business with Obama, they show little trust in him," says Steven Kull, director of WPO.
At the same time, there are some signs of softening. Trust in Obama is three times higher than the 6 percent of Iranians who expressed confidence in George W. Bush in a 2008 WPO poll. Unfavorable views of the United States government are down 8 points from the 85 percent unfavorable views in 2008 (WPO).
World Public Opinion.org
A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll finds that two-thirds of Iranians would favor their government precluding the development of nuclear weapons in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against Iran.
Only one-third would be ready to halt enrichment in exchange for lifting sanctions. However, another third, while insisting on continuing enrichment, would agree to grant international inspectors unrestricted access to nuclear facilities to ensure that that there are no bomb-making activities.
The WPO poll also finds that six in 10 Iranians believe that economic sanctions, imposed by the United States and the United Nations over fears that Iran's nuclear program might produce an atomic weapon, are having a negative impact. Seven in 10 say they believe sanctions will be tightened if Iran continues its current nuclear program.
Steven Kull, director of WPO, comments: "Though most Iranians are feeling the bite of economic sanctions and expect them to tighten, only a third are willing to negotiate away the right to enrich uranium. However, two-thirds are willing to make a deal that would preclude the development of nuclear weapons."
Elham Gheytanchi
Santa Monica College, Faculty of Sociology
Friday, September 18, was Quds (Jerusalem) Day in Iran. It was first announced 30 years ago by Ayatollah Khomeini to express solidarity with Palestinians. But on this day last week, national TV showed little of the government-organized rallies around the country. The coverage was limited because any attempt at showing the demonstrators was bound to show the green marchers, protesting the results of the June 12 presidential election. The protesters chanted “Na Gaza, Na Lobnan, Janam fadaye Iran,” (No Gaza, No Lebanon, I die for Iran).
The story of chants, mottos and slogans (shoar in Persian) dates back to the early days of the revolution in 1979. But the unexpected turn of events after the recent presidential election have revived the power of this revolutionary tradition and demonstrate the ever-changing nature of political culture in Iran today.
For one month preceding the Election Day on June 12, young Iranians – who compose the majority of the country’s population – poured into the streets all over Iran to campaign for their presidential candidate. The four presidential candidates were Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karoubi, Mohsen Rezaie and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had been approved by the Guardian Council, an unelected body of jurists and clergies. The young men, accompanied by an unprecedented number of young women, demanded more freedom, improvement of economic conditions and better relations with other countries.
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