Russia

As mentioned earlier this morning; now formally reported, per The Wall Street Journal:
Iran has formally asked for changes to an International Atomic Energy Agency proposal to ship nuclear fuel out of Iran for reprocessing abroad.
The response represents a setback in attempts by the international community to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Just last [...]

Whether it’s the one the United States, France, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency are offering is a different story. But the Iranian “president” has told state TV, in advance of a formal response expected to come Friday, that the basis for cooperation on the nuclear question is in place. The New York Times:
“Fortunately, [...]

Today is the day: about an hour ago, talks got underway in Vienna between Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.S., Russia and France to see if an initial deal last month will indeed result in sending 75 percent of Iran’s low-enriched-uranium to Russia for reprocessing into fuel, which would be a concrete step [...]

In Geneva, where the U.S. delegation has arrived in advance of tomorrow’s multilateral negotiation with Iran’s nuclear program, senior U.S. diplomats set expectations for the talks in a background briefing for reporters. The key points: the disclosure of the hidden nuclear facility at Qom has “strengthened the sense of purpose and unity amongst the 5+1 [...]

Perhaps Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s new, harsher rhetoric on Iran has a specific catalyst. The New York Times reports that President Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicholas Sarkozy will disclose that Iran has for years constructed an undisclosed — and as-yet-unoperational — nuclear facility. The announcement is set for 8:30 this [...]

Whether it’s intellectual honesty or another case of a liberal refusing to take his own side in an argument, yesterday at the United Nations, several senior Obama advisers flat-out refused to say that last week’s decision to refashion ballistic missile defense in Europe had anything to do with some comments from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. [...]

A later version of the Associated Press story I cited on joint NATO-Russia missile defense has this reaction from Russia’s emissary to NATO:
Since 2003, NATO and Russia have staged at least four simulated missile defense exercises. Both sides say they were successful.
“They showed (NATO’s and Russia’s) missile defense systems could be made interoperable,” [Dmitry] Rogozin [...]

It went kind of underneath the radar yesterday when President Obama decided to replace the proposed outdated-before-it-was-ever-built anti-ballistic missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic with a new four-phased plan for Iran-based missile defense, but Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had an intriguing speculation about what the [...]

I almost missed this John Boehner (R-Ohio) comment:
“Scrapping the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic does little more then empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe,” said Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, the House minority leader. “It shows a willful determination to continue ignoring [...]

The reaction from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to the missile defense announcement is too detached from reality to be taken seriously:
“This deeply regrettable decision sends the wrong message to Tehran, Moscow, and our European allies at a critical time in our effort to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” Senator Joe Lieberman says in a statement. [...]