As a team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency heads to Iran to oversee on Monday, Jan. 20, the dismantling of Iran’s 20% enrichment cascades, the US diplomat who was asked by the president to try to start a bilateral channel with Iran to advance a nuclear agreement has to date said little about his role.
But in an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor on Jan. 14, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns spoke for the first time about the back channel to Iran that he led, which gained momentum after Iran’s election of President Hassan Rouhani in June, and culminated in November with the first agreement to halt the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program in a decade.
