william burns

Multilateral talks with Iran over its nuclear program are underway in Geneva. There are reports that there has been one breakout meeting between chief U.S. negotiator William Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, and his Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili, but nothing yet about its substance. But one substantive shift: Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing [...]

It’s not been the greatest year for resupplying the Afghanistan war. The Kyrgyzstan government has been iffy about allowing the U.S. continued access to the Manas Air Base, a major transit hub, though it’s looking more like the U.S. military will keep access to Manas. Then there’s the NATO supply route through Pakistan, which goes [...]

According to a great story from The New York Times’ Peter Baker, last month Obama administration envoys went to Moscow — apparently as part of this trip — and secretly approached President Dmitri Medvedev with something approaching a quid pro quo: the United States will stop with a ballistic missile shield in eastern Europe if [...]