As the March deadline for a deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) over Iran's nuclear program approaches, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham is under fire for making statements that critics say implied a two-step deal, something the supreme leader has opposed.
At a press conference Feb. 18, Afkham said that while according to the interim deal in Geneva, the deadline for the negotiations is the end of June, “An internal understanding in the Geneva talks took place to have a political ‘understanding’ by the end of March in order to discuss the details later.”