W.H. on Iran Negotiations: ‘The Most Difficult Issues Get Kicked to the End’
WH On Iran Negotiations: "The Most Difficult Issues Get Kicked To The End" (RealClearPolitics)
White House spokesman Josh Earnest explains that Obama "is going to resist any effort to sort of fast forward through the closing here." Progress is being made in nuclear negotiations with Iran, "over the last couple weeks, what started out as a long list of differences has slowly -- I would acknowledge slowly -- but steadily narrowed."
REPORTER: It's hard to know what is being agreed upon and what is not being agreed upon. I don't have a great sense of why the president feels like another two days, another three days will close the door on these issues that have been open for months.
JOSH EARNEST: That's an entirely legitimate question. The chief obstacle, then, to us, is providing greater insight about what is exactly occurring behind closed doors, the key tenet of our talks that we've been repeating for a couple of years now, is that nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.
REPORTER: But I'm asking not even in terms of specifics. Is he seeing the Iranians make concessions on the issues? What is it that he's seen from the Iranians that leads him to believe they would continue to move closer to the U.S. position if you keep this going?
EARNEST: I think because as the negotiations have gone on over the last couple weeks, what started out as a long list of differences has slowly -- I would acknowledge slowly -- but steadily narrowed.
That's an indication we are making progress toward an agreement and that's why I would describe talks as making genuine progress but what's also true is typically some of the most difficult issues are the ones that get kicked to the end and that's why the president is going to resist any effort to sort of fast forward through the closing here.
There continue to be significant issues that remain and the president will not sign on to agreement -- and this is the attitude by our P5+1 partners, too, they won't sign on to an agreement until all of that has been addressed.
