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Former US Official Links Syrian Disarmament to Iran Nuclear Talks

Robert Einhorn says President Obama’s flexibility on Iran will be affected by the Syria chemical weapons disarmament plan, and the US and Iran should adopt a more informal approach to nuclear negotiations.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) speaks next to U.N. Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi (C) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after a meeting discussing the ongoing problems in Syria at the United Nations offices in Geneva September 13, 2013. REUTERS/Larry Downing (SWITZERLAND - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTX13JO4

A former senior US nuclear negotiator, Robert Einhorn, said Thursday [Sept. 12] that the fate of the Russian proposal to remove Syria’s chemical weapons will have a strong impact on whether the United States and Iran can make progress toward a nuclear accord.

Speaking at a symposium on Iran at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, Einhorn, who left the Obama administration in May after more than four years of participating in largely unsuccessful talks with Iran, said that “if the Syrians in the end show bad faith ... [or] the Russians are unable to deliver” within three or four months on the chemical disarmament plan, the implications for an Iran nuclear deal would be “very, very negative.”

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