The Geneva Talks: No Breakthrough, Yet much Accomplished

Kayvon Afshari

Director of Communications, American Iranian Council

November 9, 2013

Zarif Meeting with Ashton
Zarif Meeting with Ashton

After three days of serious, high-level talks in Geneva, the P5+1 announced that a deal has yet to be reached on Iran’s nuclear program. Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign policy chief, said that they would meet again on November 20th at the senior diplomat level, rather than the foreign minister level.

Secretary of State John Kerry tried to stay upbeat, telling journalists, “We came to Geneva to narrow the differences, and I can tell you without any reservations, we made significant progress. It takes time to build confidence between countries that have really been at odds with each other for a long time now,” he said.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister in charge of the nuclear negotiations struck a similar tone, saying, “It was natural when we started dealing with the details there could be differences of views. But we are working together and hopeful we will be able to reach agreement when we meet again”

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Kayvon Afshari

Kayvon Afshari managed the campaign to elect Hooshang Amirahmadi as President of Iran. In this role, he directed the campaign’s event planning, publicity, online social media, web analytics, and delivered speeches. Mr. Afshari has also been working at the CBS News foreign desk for over five years. He has coordinated coverage of Iran’s 2009 post-election demonstrations, the Arab Spring, the earthquake in Haiti, and many other stories of international significance. He holds a Master in International Relations from New York University’s Department of Politics, and graduated with distinction from McGill University in 2007 with a double major in political science and Middle Eastern studies. At NYU, his research focused on quantitative analysis and the Middle East with an emphasis on US-Iran relations. In his 2012 Master’s thesis, he devised a formula to predict whether Israel would launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, concluding that an overt strike would not materialize.