Russia threatens to sink a year of nuclear negotiations with Iran

in Vienna had started to resemble Zeno’s paradox: a man who keeps moving half the distance to his destination will never arrive. For almost a year, diplomats from the “P5+1”—the Security Council’s five permanent members, plus Germany—have been trying to resurrect their nuclear agreement of 2015 with Iran, which lifted some sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018. Joe Biden promised to revive the deal. This has proved tougher than expected.Since December Western diplomats have been warning that the talks could collapse within weeks, because Iran’s accelerating would soon make it impossible to restore the deal’s non-proliferation benefits. Weeks passed, and the deadline remained weeks away. “The window of opportunity is closing,” the French foreign ministry said on March 10th. Rarely in history has a window closed so slowly.