The historic moment was carefully choreographed. The foreign ministers of the five permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council, Russia, China, Great Britain, France and the United States, along with Germany, met at 4 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. After 15 minutes the host, European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, called Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif into the recently renovated Security Council Chamber. The Iranians shouldn't feel excluded -- but they shouldn't feel too much a part of the global community either.
Zarif, who lived in New York for many years, dispensed with the usual polite remarks. He said that he didn't want to waste any time, and that much had changed in his country as a result of recent elections. He told the assembled members that his mission was to peacefully resolve the conflict over Iran's nuclear program. He even suggested a timeframe, saying that a compromise could be reached "within a year," and that his country was "determined to make this possible." After his remarks, Zarif met privately with US Secretary of State John Kerry. » | Dieter Bednarz, Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark | Monday, September 30, 2013
