There is a glut of information on this deal now flooding the media ~ this is an enormous coup for diplomacy, but there is still massive work to be done to finalize the deal ~ and I'm waiting for "conservative" heads to start exploding ~ Sooz

Full transcript: the international statement on the Iranian nuclear deal
Updated by Katy Lee on April 2, 2015, 3:21 p.m. ET

International negotiators have finally reached an outline agreement for a deal that will see Iran limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, after eight days of hugely complicated talks in Switzerland. Negotiators have set themselves a June 30 deadline to work out the full details of the deal.

Here's the full text of the statement on the deal, read by the EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, at a press conference in Lausanne on Thursday afternoon alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

I'm going now to read a joint statement that we have agreed on with Foreign Minister Zarif and all the others that have been negotiating so hard in these days.

We, the European Union High Representative and the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, together with the Foreign Ministers of the E3 + 3, China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, met from 26 March to 2 April 2014 in Switzerland, as agreed in November 2013, to gather here to find solutions towards reaching a comprehensive solution that will ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program and the comprehensive lifting of all sanctions.

Today we have taken a decisive step. We have reached solutions on key parameters of a joint comprehensive plan of action. The political determination, the goodwill and the hard work of all parties made it possible and let us thank all delegations for their tireless dedication.

This is a crucial declaration laying the agreed basis for the final text of the joint comprehensive plan of action. We can now restart drafting the text and annexes of the joint comprehensive plan of action, guided by the solutions developed in these days.

As Iran pursues a peaceful nuclear program, Iran's enrichment capacity, enrichment level and stockpile will be limited for specific durations and there will be no other enrichment facility than Natanz.

Iran's research and development on centrifuges will be carried out on a scope and schedule that has been mutually agreed. Fordow will be converted from an enrichment site into a nuclear physics and technology center. International collaboration will be encouraged in agreed areas of research. There will not be any fissile material at Fordow.

An international joint venture will assist Iran in redesigning and rebuilding a modernized heavy water research reactor in Arak that will not produce weapons-grade plutonium. There will be no reprocessing, and spent fuel will be exported. A set of measures have been agreed to monitor the provisions of the JCPOA including implementation of the modified code 3.1 and provision of the additional protocol.

The International Atomic Energy Agency will be permitted the use of modern technologies and will have announced access through agreed procedures including to clarify past and present issues. Iran will take part in international cooperation in the field of civilian nuclear energy which can include supply of power and research reactors. Another important area of cooperation will be in the field of nuclear safety and security.

The European Union will terminate the implementation of all nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions and the United States will cease the application of all nuclear-related secondary economic and financial sanctions simultaneously with the IAEA-verified implementation by Iran of its key nuclear commitments.

A new UN Security Council resolution will endorse the JCPOA, terminate all previous nuclear-related resolutions, and incorporate certain restrictive measures for a mutually agreed period of time. We will now work to write the text of a joint comprehensive plan of action including its technical details in the coming weeks and months at the political and experts level. We are committed to complete our efforts by June 30.

We would like to thank the Swiss government for its generous support in hosting these negotiations, and let me personally and on behalf of everybody also thank you all, journalists and media from around the world, for having followed our work and somehow also worked with us over this difficult but intense and positive week.

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/2/8336723/iran-nuclear-deal-transcript

Just found this link to the "State Department fact sheet setting forth the basic parameters of the agreement" ~ I have not yet read thru the fact sheet ~ Sooz

Here's the official US description of the Iran nuclear deal
Updated by Amanda Taub on April 2, 2015, 3:12 p.m. ET

On Thursday, an international team of negotiators in Lausanne, Switzerland, announced that they had agreed on a framework for a final deal intended to restrict Iran's nuclear program and prevent the country from getting nuclear weapons. In return for agreeing to and implementing these restrictions, Iran will eventually get some relief from international sanctions.

Via the Washington Post, here is the State Department fact sheet setting forth the basic parameters of the agreement:

Parameters of Iran Nuclear Deal

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/2/8336687/iran-deal-framework

There'll be some pissed off Tea Partiers in DC tonight.

And Bibi must be livid.

I fervently HOPE SO, oskar ~

Sooz

Here's more ~ the video is well-worth watching [runs about 18-1/2 minutes] ~ there are a few "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Obama defies the odds, announces provisional Iran deal
04/02/15 03:53 PM—Updated 04/02/15 04:04 PM
By Steve Benen

It’s easy to forget that since 1979, the United States and Iran barely spoke, at all, in any capacity. Before 2013, the two nations’ heads of state hadn’t directly communicated with one another at all. Indeed, just a decade ago, U.S. foreign policy dictated that Iran was part of an “axis of evil.”

But today is a new, very different day. President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, leading U.S. allies, and international negotiating partners were able to overcome decades of history, animosity, and distrust to announce a provisional nuclear agreement.


The agreement is not yet complete. What the negotiators agreed to is a framework – a blueprint of sorts – that will serve as the basis for additional talks in which participants will hammer out details. The P5+1 process, led by negotiators from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, Russia, and Iran, will continue for an additional three months.

But don’t mistake this for a routine or unimportant development. On the contrary, today’s announcement is a historic diplomatic breakthrough, which could have fallen apart any number of times, and which faced long odds from the start.

And yet, here we are.

What made the preliminary deal possible was the fact that both sides had something to offer and something they wanted in return. Iran, brought to the negotiating table after Obama imposed tough sanctions that crippled Iran’s economy, wanted to improve its economic conditions in exchange for curtailing its nuclear ambitions.

The United States and its negotiating partners saw that as the basis for a conversation, all of which led to today.

All kinds of important details remain unresolved, but the msnbc report included some additional elements to keep in mind.


“If Iran cheats, the world will know it,” Obama said. “If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it.”

For more, the White House has also published a detailed fact-sheet.

Obama’s remarks, delivered this afternoon at the White House, are worth watching in full. Note, for example, the frequency with which he anticipates critics’ concerns, and preemptively debunks the talking points.


http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-defies-the-odds-announces-provisional-iran-deal

And the rabid Mark Kirk re-emerges ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Friday, Apr 3, 2015 9:58 AM UTC
Republicans’ “Hitler” idiocy: Why their hysterical Iran pushback exposes a secret
GOP says the new nuclear deal with Iran is worse than the appeasement of Hitler. Here's what that really reveals.
Simon Maloy

Finally, after many long months of negotiating and behind-the-scenes drama, a U.S.-led international coalition and the government of Iran have arrived at what can probably be best described as a mutually agreed upon framework for a future agreement. As vague as that sounds, there are some actual specifics that come along with it: Iran will agree to drastically downgrade the number and quality of centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium, limit its uranium-enrichment activities for at least 15 years, destroy its plutonium-producing reactor at Arak, and allow international inspectors access to all its nuclear facilities and its nuclear supply chain. In return for meeting these commitments, the United States and the European Union will suspend sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program (while maintaining the sanctions “architecture” so that they can be quickly reinstated should Iran violate the agreement).

I’m not going to pretend that I’m some sort of expert in international diplomacy or nuclear non-proliferation and render judgment on the strength of this pre-agreement agreement. I do feel like I can say one thing with a fair amount of confidence, though: it’s not worse than Hitler.

Ever since it was first announced that the U.S. and its allies would be entering into talks with Iran to curb that country’s nuclear ambitions, conservative hawks have been attacking the diplomatic effort as a repeat of the 1938 Munich Agreement, in which the Western powers agreed to let Nazi Germany annex large portions of Czechoslovakia in an ultimately futile effort to prevent war. Comparisons of President Obama to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who brokered the Munich Pact and boasted of “peace in our time” afterward, have been the stuff of many a hot take.

That those same conservatives had no idea of what the actual agreement with Iran would look like was immaterial – the very idea of diplomacy with Iran was viewed as weakness. Now that they actually have a sense of what the terms are, the Godwinning of the Iran debate is kicking into overdrive. Here’s the reaction from “moderate” Republican Mark Kirk, senator from Illinois:


And it wasn’t Kirk’s only indulgence in gross hyperbole:


There’s a lot to chew on here. First, let’s contrast Kirk’s reaction to that of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a person who spends a significant portion of his existence fantasizing about doomsday scenarios in front of television cameras:


Congratulations, Sen. Kirk: you did the unthinkable and out-demagogued Lindsey Graham on foreign policy.

Second, the idea that this pre-agreement agreement with Iran is worse than the Munich Pact is quite a bold assertion. Here’s the Munich Pact. You can read the text if you like, but the basic gist of it is: Hitler demands territorial concessions from Czechoslovakia and the release of political prisoners, and Czechoslovakia will provide to Hitler those territories and prisoners by certain dates. It was a very pro-Hitler agreement. The immediate consequence of the Munich Pact was a massive refugee crisis in the ethnically German portions of Czechoslovakia as Jews, gypsies, and other targets of Nazi repression fled ahead of the German occupation. A great many were sent off to concentration camps and murdered. The Munich Pact also led to the non-aggression pact between the Nazis and the Soviets, which freed Hitler’s hand to invade Poland and start the bloodiest war in human history. If Kirk is arguing that this agreement with Iran – which, again, isn’t even an agreement yet – is worse than that, then he should probably start making his case.

The logical conclusion of that case, as Paul Waldman rightly pointed out earlier this week, is war. The people who spout off about Munich and Chamberlain are arguing without actually saying it that we should take military action against Iran to halt its nuclear ambitions. There’s really no other way to interpret it when you’re casting Iran in the role of Nazi Germany and belittling the very idea of conducting diplomacy with an enemy. Kirk at least will admit that he sees armed conflict on the horizon, only he’s punting responsibility to the Israelis.

Anyway, chances are excellent that in the next few days you’ll see someone on Twitter or the Senate floor making the Munich comparison and complaining that by entering into a diplomatic agreement with Iran we’re only increasing the chances of going to war. This is disingenuous bullshit. War is the outcome they’re working towards.

Salon

PRIMO Benen commentary! ~ Sooz

The familiar, reflexive anti-agreement posture
04/03/15 12:54 PM
By Steve Benen

As observers around the world digest the details of the preliminary nuclear agreement with Iran, one of the striking aspects of the reactions is how pleasantly surprised some proponents are. There’s a large contingent of experts saying this morning, “I was ready to live with an unsatisfying deal, but this is a bigger win for America than I could have imagined.

Fred Kaplan, for example, said the framework “turns out to be far more detailed, quantitative, and restrictive than anyone had expected.” Max Fisher called the blueprint “astonishingly good,” adding that it’s “almost astoundingly favorable to the United States” and “far better than expected.”

It’s against this background that congressional Republicans screamed bloody murder. “Neville Chamberlain got a better deal from Adolf Hitler,” Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) said in a statement.

Obviously, these are not the comments of someone who wants to be taken seriously by adults. Indeed, I can’t help but wonder how many GOP critics already had their furious press releases pre-written, waiting for an agreement to be announced, so they could start whining before reading it.

But Jon Chait recently noticed the broader problem.


The right opposed every nonproliferation treaty with the Soviets. The right opposed Nixon going to China. The right condemned the SALT treaty and the START treaty.

As Peter Beinart explained a while back, Reagan and Clinton were both confronted with ugly Munich comparisons from far-right ideologues – many of whom are literally the same people furious with Obama for curtailing Iran’s nuclear ambitions now.

This is no small detail. In fact, it’s one of the more important aspects of the entire debate.

If some policymakers oppose literally any agreement, without regard for policy or principle, solely out of reflex, then their concerns must be dismissed out of hand. There’s ample room for a spirited debate on the merits, but for the discussion to have any integrity, it should be limited to those who take the disagreement itself seriously.

Their vitriol has no real meaning precisely because it unrelated to any evidence or facts.

The right opposes a deal with Iran, not because of the provisions included in the preliminary agreement, but because it’s a deal with Iran.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-familiar-reflexive-anti-agreement-posture#break

Hell, it's the righties, in both the US and Britain, who made a bitter enemy out of Iran in 1953.

this seems like one of the best negotiated agreements in decades.