From Foreign Policy (The Cable):As Barack Obama settles into the Oval Office and begins his stated mission of reorienting U.S. foreign policy, there's been a flurry of attention to exactly when and how Obama will open a direct dialogue with Iran, as he promised in his campaign. No question that will mark a break from the stinging rhetoric and halting, inconsistent diplomacy of the Bush years. But several sources told The Cable that the informal dialogue between senior Americans and the Iranians was much more robust in recent months than has been previously reported.
Over the past year, our sources confirmed, former Defense Secretary William Perry and a group of high-level U.S. nuclear nonproliferation specialists and U.S. experts on Iran held a series of meetings in European cities with Iranian officials under the auspices of the Pugwash group. (Pugwash, a group founded in 1957 by an international group of scientists, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for advocating for the elimination of nuclear weapons.) Perry served as a member of the Obama campaign's national security working group.
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My Comment: It appears that contacts with Iran have been more extensive and deeper than what has been first reported. But as I had mentioned in a post a few days ago, Iran has shown no serious interest to negotiate with the U.S. since the Iranian revolution of 1979. If they are talking, it is to distract attention from their nuclear program .... which from where I am standing I will have to say it is working.