Word: diplomatic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Swiss ambassador's message (Switzerland handles American interests in Iran, since Tehran and Washington do not have diplomatic relations) arrived at a delicate moment. Obama had personally launched a goodwill campaign to improve relations with Iran and restart negotiations over its nuclear program. But Iran was stalling on Obama's offer of nuclear talks, and now the U.S. team, led by veteran diplomat Dennis Ross, had to figure out where the Saberi gambit fit in. Her potential release could be a sign that moderates in Tehran were on the rise, in which case the U.S. should reciprocate. Or it could...
...diplomat has his work cut out for him. Iran, which in 2003 was found to have established a large-scale uranium-enrichment program, badly wants to be a nuclear power, though it claims its ambitions are peaceful. And the clock is ticking; after Iran holds presidential elections on June 12 (with a second round, if needed, on June 19), the U.S. and Europe will again push for talks on the nuclear issue, senior Administration officials say. If Tehran's diplomats haven't shown a real willingness to respond by September, the U.S. and Europe will announce tough new sanctions...
Ross then laid the carrots on thick, dispensing with the formal line that the U.S. doesn't talk to Iran. On the weekend of March 27, a U.S. diplomat discussed economic issues with his Iranian counterpart in Moscow. Days later, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, met with Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Mehdi Akhundzadeh at an international conference in the Hague. At a Friends of Pakistan meeting in Tokyo, one of Holbrooke's diplomats met with his Iranian counterpart. And in a secret back-channel outreach in April, State Department staffers working for Ross got clearance...
...Nairobi, nods and says: "There is no healing." That's often the case in Africa. Kenyans want peace. But their leaders thrive instead on enduring enmities and division. "Political leaders use ethnicity as an instrument to achieve power and their goals," says Oloo. Which means, adds a Western diplomat in the city, "There is no good guy in this scenario...
...women on humanitarian grounds. But it is hardly a foregone conclusion that the North will comply anytime soon. The two women have become yet another bargaining chip between Washington and Pyongyang, and "no one knows at this point what the North will want for them," says a diplomat in Seoul. (See pictures of North Koreans at the polls...