In an appearance on “Morning Joe” Thursday, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell said the Iranians are “running circles around the Americans” on the world stage as nuclear talks continue among the seven nations in Switzerland.
Talks have now stretched two days past the March 31 deadline, and as Mitchell told her MSNBC colleagues, the Iranians are “setting the expectations” at this point in discussions. She added that the U.S., on the other hand, is “not talking at all” to the press.
“I think they’re going to finish today … what we’re being told is that it may be less than was hoped for. Let’s take it back for a moment,” Mitchell said. “Only the Iranians are speaking substantively.”
“[Mohammad Javad] Zarif and his deputy foreign minister, they’re the only people coming out and saying things other than what you get from an occasional British, German or French foreign minister — ‘You know, the last 10 meters are the hardest.’ The U.S. is not talking at all, is not briefing, is not briefing off the record, on the record,” Mitchell reported.
“So the bottom line is that the Iranians are running circles around the Americans here in terms of public diplomacy,” Mitchell said. “They are setting the expectations. All of the world media is now hinged on what Zarif might say going in or out of breakfast, and today going in to breakfast he said that there has been, he believes, substantial progress.”