Lindsey Hilsum
The Rolex ticks at Iran nuclear talks
Geneva, under UN auspices, was the Iranians choice to hold talks, but what about the date? With a deadline of midnight 31 March a new danger arose: the April Fool’s Agreement.
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Lindsey Hilsum
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Lindsey Hilsum
Iran nuclear talks: another 36 hours to make harmony
The mood music coming out of Iran nuclear talks in Lausanne may be positive, but there are more variations to be played through before a harmonious finale can be achieved.
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Kylie Morris
US seeks ‘bandwidth’ to deal with IS, Ebola and the Ukraine crisis
Achieving a unified approach in dealing with the threat from Islamic State is one of several challenges facing the US at the United Nations General Assembly this week.
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Jonathan Rugman
Putting a Muslim face on a new coalition of the willing
The emphasis at the Nato summit has been on forming a new Iraqi government and putting a Muslim, regional face on any “coalition of the willing”.
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Kylie Morris
Gaza-Israel ceasefire on the horizon, but still a way off
America’s Federal Aviation Administration has announced that it’s extending its ban on flights to and from Tel Aviv for another 24 hours. The European Aviation Safety Agency has also recommended airlines avoid the Ben Gurion airport “until further notice”. The announcements come a day after a rocket fired from Gaza landed near airport. Despite the…
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Cathy Newman
Note to Kerry: two questions do not a press conference make
Why, when insurgents are rampaging through Iraq, were British journalists permitted to ask John Kerry and William Hague only two questions at a press conference today?
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Krishnan Guru-Murthy
The press pool stifling hard questions
I am troubled by the whole press pool concept. The media is inadvertently conspiring with politicians and their spin doctors to make them look good and allow them to evade questions.
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Jonathan Rugman
Kerry and Lavrov meet, but omens on Ukraine are not good
The diplomatic chill is deepening ahead of Crimea’s vote on joining Russia. And the tougher the west gets, the more intransigent the Russians could become.
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Gary Gibbon
Ukraine, Paris and Brussels
US and EU diplomacy to end the Ukraine crisis is being undermined by the lack of appetite among some countries for any course of action that might influence Russia’s next moves.
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Lindsey Hilsum
Crimea: Russian forces are in control here, whatever Lavrov says
Sergei Lavrov says the military fatigues who have taken over Ukrainian military bases in Crimea are not Russian soldiers. One colonel tells me: “It’s a lie.”
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Alex Thomson
The drip drip of foreign blood on Afghan dust
With the crisis in Ukraine sweeping all headlines before it, it is hard to recall that the reason John Kerry ever stepped on to a plane to Europe in recent days was for Afghanistan.
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Gary Gibbon
How far apart are the United States and European Union over Ukraine?
The next two days see a Nato meeting, a meeting of foreign ministers, and an EU gathering. Will countries with widely differing agendas on Ukraine be able to find a way forward?
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Lindsey Hilsum
Kerry and Lavrov: picking up the baton for peace in Syria
After August’s chemical attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, prospects for peace in Syria looked remote. But then Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his US counterpart, John Kerry, managed to pull the world back from the brink.
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Gary Gibbon
Extraordinary ‘deal’ announced over Syria
The Kerry-Lavrov deal will rewrite the diplomacy handbooks… if it works.
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Jonathan Rugman
Syria's lesson is that exhaustive diplomacy must precede force
Why have all the powers involved in trying to resolve the Syria crisis – the US, Russia, France and Britain – so singularly failed to exhaust diplomatic avenues to avoid conflict?