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 Throughout it all, a band was crooning Irish folk tunes that
seemed to grow louder as the tedious negotiations continued into the
wee hours of Sunday morning.
On one side of the hotel's first floor, negotiators talked about
centrifuges and uranium, hoping to ink the first step of a
comprehensive agreement that could affect the world balance of
nuclear weapons technology. Security was tight and an armored
personnel carrier was parked outside.
On the other side of the floor, men in tuxedos and women in
strapless gowns were partying at a noisy charity event that could be
watched from the lobby below.
The final marathon day of negotiations began around 9 a.m. Saturday.
Diplomats from Iran, the U.S., Britain, Russia, France, China and
Germany as well as the European Union filed into the lobby, their
security teams in tow. Their first challenge: negotiating a phalanx
of reporters and photographers camped out.
After the arrivals, hours passed with no hint of what was happening
behind closed doors.
About 10 hours into the negotiations, Secretary of State John Kerry
secretly slipped out of the hotel for about 30 minutes to buy
truffles at Auer Chocolatier, a five-generation family business not
far from Lake Geneva. The sweets were for his wife and family for
Thanksgiving dinner.
The negotiations also paused for dinner. The U.S. delegation dined
on different kinds of pasta ordered into Kerry's suite.
Throughout the day, Kerry felt that there was a chance for an
agreement, a senior State Department official told reporters
traveling on his plane Monday as it returned from Europe. But there
was a point when he became dubious because Iranian Foreign Minister
Javad Zarif "looked anxious and appeared to be under pressure from
Tehran," according to the official, speaking on condition of
anonymity because the individual was not authorized to discuss the
talks by name.
The U.S. delegation was in touch with the White House throughout the
day. Kerry called President Barack Obama mid-afternoon local time to
update him on the discussions and once again before midnight. After
that call, the U.S. team ordered pizza and Kerry broke out some of
his chocolates to share with the group.
Kerry was not completely convinced that a deal was going to be
reached until well after midnight. At their final three-way meeting,
Kerry, Zarif and the European Union's top diplomat, Catherine
Ashton, managed to work through some — though not all — of the
remaining issues, the official said.
"The last meeting ... was pretty much make or break," the official
said. The agreement, however, was not actually struck at that
meeting, according to the official, who declined to provide details
on exactly when the deal was sealed.
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An official with the group of the six world powers said that toward
the end, Russia and China were willing to sign an agreement that had
less stringent language. The official, who was not authorized to
publicly disclose by name details about the negotiations, said that
left the U.S. pressing past midnight — and sometimes alone — for
tougher restrictions on uranium enrichment and a heavy water reactor
that Iran is building in Arak, southwest of Tehran.
Heavy water reactors produce plutonium, which also can be used to
make nuclear weapons — something Iran has long said it has no plans
to do.
The negotiations were so detailed that there was even discussion
about an asterisk, found on the fourth and final page of the
document's preamble. It states that going forward, the principle of
"nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" applies. It means
that in the future, as Iran's nuclear work continues, everything
must be agreed upon by all parties.
As Saturday became Sunday, the lobby bar closed, but the band played
on. The musicians were belting out the Irish ballad "Danny Boy," and
partiers were doing their best to line-dance in their finest.
The scene below was starkly different. Those waiting for the talks
to end were dozing on couches, making the lobby of the swank hotel
look more like a bus depot. Phone and laptop chargers were
piggy-backed into every available electrical outlet, making sure
they were juiced-up and ready to relay news of a deal to the world.
Shortly before 2 a.m., there was a flurry of activity on one side of
the lobby. The Iranian news agency ISNA had just reported that the
negotiators had resolved their differences. There was a mad dash to
find anyone who spoke Farsi. Other Iranian news agencies sent out
similar reports. Depending on the translator, a deal had been
reached, or a deal was close at hand.
The U.S. delegation played down the reports, saying foreign
ministers still had to meet, and advised reporters to stay tuned and
drink coffee to stay awake.
It would be another hour — the 18th and last hour of negotiations —
before it was official. Michael Mann, a spokesman for Ashton, the
EU's top negotiator, tweeted around 3 a.m. that the parties had
"reached agreement."
[Associated
Press; DEB RIECHMANN]
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