State Dept. Struggles to Explain Iran Claiming U.S. Officials Lying About Nuke Deal

NN REPORTER: "Can we just go back – sorry, I know you don’t want to parse words and – but I want to look at this – the business about the fact sheet for a second, Jeff. You’ve said repeatedly here, as has the Secretary of State, that we don’t want to negotiate this deal in the press. And yet this department circulated a three-page document outlining the parameters of what was agreed to in Switzerland, and here now we have the Iranian Supreme Leader saying that it was inaccurate. Actually, what did he call it? Lying, most of it was against the agreement and wrong. So was the fact sheet that was circulated translated into Farsi? I mean, there was also a Farsi fact sheet that came out from Tehran right afterwards that was different from the one that this department circulated. Why did you guys circulate that fact sheet – that’s my question – if you’re not trying to argue this in the public space?"
RATHKE: "Well, the distinction I would draw is we’ve – as we’ve said, we are not negotiating in public. The fact sheet represents understandings from – that were reached at Lausanne."
NN REPORTER: "That the Iranians agreed to."
 RATHKE: "And we stand by that. And of course, as we’ve said all along, we consider it important as well to explain to the American public, including to Congress but to the public more broadly, what we’ve achieved in those talks. So I don’t see a contradiction between those two things. As to the Iranians, their characterization of it, again, I’m not going to parse it."
NN REPORTER: "But they agreed to the fact sheet that was circulated by this department?"
RATHKE: "No. It wasn’t a negotiated fact sheet that was released by the United States based on – we told them that we were going to talk about the agreement publicly, but it wasn’t a negotiated document."
NN REPORTER: "So does it actually reflect what happened in the talks?"
RATHKE: "Yes. Yes, and we stand by it."
NN REPORTER: "Because it was circulated like 10 minutes after the President announced that there was this historic development. It seemed like it was directly connected to what the focus of the talks were."
RATHKE: "Well, yeah. And it reflects the understandings achieved there.|
NN REPORTER: "And so the Iranians agreed to what was in that document? Not --"
RATHKE: "Yeah. Not to the document itself. It isn’t like we had a process of negotiating that specific piece of paper. That’s the point I was making. But that fact sheet reflects the understandings achieved at Lausanne."
NN REPORTER 1: "According to you."
RATHKE: "Yeah. But – and we stand by it."
NN REPORTER: "Right. But at some point somewhere down the line, presumably by the end of June, you’re going to have to produce – everyone at the table is going to have to produce one fact sheet that everybody agrees on. It doesn’t sound like you’re anywhere close to that."
RATHKE: "Well, that’s the goal – is a joint comprehensive plan of action."
NN REPORTER: "Right. Well, can you guarantee to us that if there is an agreement, it will be agreed to by everyone, and we won’t have the same kind of back and forth post agreement come July 2nd?"
RATHKE: "I’m not going to speak to the final shape and form of the agreement. And that’s also the nature of Arshad’s question --"
NN REPORTER: "The problem is that it just appears that – I know. It just appears because of the conflicting interpretations of what happened at Lausanne that, in fact, while you are saying that your version is correct and these things were agreed to, in fact, it’s not at all clear, at least to the Iranians, that they agreed to this. In fact, they say they didn’t, which is --"
RATHKE: "Well, again --"
NN REPORTER: "problematic when you’re – which is a bit problematic if you’re negotiating with someone and you think you’ve agreed on something and they say no, we didn’t agree to this at all, right?"
RATHKE: "Well, again, we stand by that."