Talk:Joint Plan of Action

International Reception

I started this because obviously there is much more in the international arena that will be said beyond Israel, the P5+1, etc. Doyna Yar (talk) 04:07, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Background section?

How much background is appropriate for this agreement? I would say that the election of Hassan Rouhani clearly marked a shift in public diplomacy between Iran and the West, but the Associated Press has reported today that the U.S. was holding secret talks with Iran for a year, including five face-to-face meetings in Oman. These talks supposedly explored the logistics of higher-level negotiations. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 08:27, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm going to be BOLD and start a new section. Other editors are welcome to suggest changes to the scope of the section, of course. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 09:52, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Would be interesting to have more info from Gareth Porter: "Manufactured Crisis" in that background part. Username of 2017 (talk) 22:42, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Expansion of negotiations section

This should probably be expanded to include the issues being discussed, the timeline of the talks, the negotiators involved, etc. ... or so I would think. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 10:20, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Links

>> Auto and Shipping Firms Among Potential Iran Deal Winners>> Stocks Climb as Oil Declines on Iran Accord; Yen Weakens + Netanyahu's "historic mistake" >> European Stocks Rise on Iran Accord as Air France Climbs>> Will Israel 'come to terms' with Iran deal? >> Netanyahu: Crying wolf again>> Zarif asks Saudi Arabia to work with Iran >> A narcissistic US, an anxious Saudi Arabia and a hysterical Israel [1]>> Nuclear chutzpah* >> Kerry raises doubts over Iran nuclear deal >> GCC states hope Iran deal will end tension >> Iran nuclear talks suffer setback >> Iran nuclear deal to take effect this month>> Is Your Name Jewish Enough to Oppose New Iran Sanctions?]\>> IAEA inspectors arrive in Tehran>> Rouhani: Iran is getting nuclear deal benefit >> Rouhani says Iran serious about nuclear talks>> US-Iran deal: Compromise is key>> Israel renews concern over Iran nuclear talks >> Rouhani to generals: Let diplomacy prevail>> US and Iran: More work needed on atomic deal>> Obama: Iranians 'deserve better' from leaders >> US tells Iran UN envoy pick is 'not viable'>> Iranian supreme leader approves nuclear talks (Lihaas (talk) 13:07, 25 November 2013 (UTC)).

Full text

Someone posted the full text of the agreement, and I've formatted it. I have no idea what its copyright status is. If it isn't in the public domain or available under a licence that is compatible with the CC-BY-SA licence, then it should be removed. --Joshua Issac (talk) 13:39, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the section until its copyright status can be determined. --Joshua Issac (talk) 13:52, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

How does one answer that question? The statement has been posted on the EU web page here linked from here, where it seems intended for unrestricted dissemination. There is no copyright notice. Here's another link. NPguy (talk) 04:02, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Documents created by the American federal government are in the public domain. I do not know if a similar law exists for whatever organisation that produced the text of the treaty.

The Europa web portal has the following copyright notice:

© European Union, 1995-2013
Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged, save where otherwise stated.
Where prior permission must be obtained for the reproduction or use of textual and multimedia information (sound, images, software, etc.), such permission shall cancel the above-mentioned general permission and shall clearly indicate any restrictions on use.

From Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions/Archive/2011/October#Logos of NATO, SEATO und CENTO:

Here in the USA, all laws are PD, and the US Constitution provides that treaties are law. Of course, logos likely aren't part of a treaty's legally enforceable text, but the text of a treaty is PD-US. Nyttend (talk) 01:34, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Based on this, I think that it's fairly safe to say that the treaty is indeed in the public domain in the United States, where Wikipedia's servers reside. So it can probably be restored, unless someone has a reason to oppose. --Joshua Issac (talk) 15:19, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

This agreement is not a treaty or a law in the United States. I'm not saying it's not public domain, but it is not on that basis. Tomsv 98 (talk) 19:06, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Good point. I've asked the question at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Text of the Iranian nuclear agreement. --Joshua Issac (talk) 09:15, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Name

This name is a particularly egregious example of the strange, technical, and formulaic article naming practices at Wikipedia. Why would Geneva Accord (2013) be so sub-optimal to you people? --Simfan34 (talk) 19:32, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

The current name is not very good, but I don't know if your name is any better. Of the other articles linked from Geneva Accord, only Geneva Accords (1988) is actually titled in that fashion. For this article, it just seems to be one of many names to describe it... Does any treaty signed in Geneva automatically become a properly named "Geneva Accord"? Maybe something like "2013 Iranian nuclear accord" would be better. X2Y2k6 (talk) 20:59, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Untrue, many sources call this also "Geneva Accord" with capital "a"; 'Iranian nuclear accord' sounds awkward.GreyShark (dibra) 21:11, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

The accord itself does not seem to have an official name. The full text just starts off with the title "Joint Plan of Action". Are any of the member states officially calling this a/the "Geneva Accord"? Searching for "geneva accord of 2013" and similar brings up tons of different names, e.g., Kerry's initial tweet of "Agreement in Geneva", among tons of other descriptive names. Which are these "many sources" that consistently use "Geneva Accord" as a proper name? A name like "2013 Iranian nuclear accord" or "2013 Iranian nuclear agreement" is also more clear and descriptive, compared to the vague "Geneva Accord (2013)". X2Y2k6 (talk) 21:31, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

The official title on the document is "Joint Plan of Action." NPguy (talk) 04:03, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Is that actually intended as an official title to be used publicly, or is it just a generic title for this type of treaty document? I never actually ran into that title myself until I researched it earlier when commenting above. I don't see reliable sources using that title outside of quoting the full agreement, so it wouldn't make sense for the article title (on top of being horribly vague), but I'm still wondering if it's actually official enough for the lead. If it is, we should probably note "an interim agreement, known as the Joint Plan of Action, ..." in the lead, but I'm not convinced it's a non-generic-enough official title for that, given lack of coverage by sources in that respect. X2Y2k6 (talk) 04:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Some sources do call it the Joint Plan of Action, but it seems to be generic. According to the UN website, 87 years from now, there will be a counter-terrorism agreement titled "Joint Plan of Action": http://www.un.org/en/terrorism/ctitf/pdfs/final_joint_action_plan_en.pdf. --Joshua Issac (talk) 16:35, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Lead negotiators

The gallery of lead negotiators is a bit misleading. While Foreign Ministers did play an important role in the last two rounds of negotiations, the lead negotiators have been Political Directors, e.g. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman for the United States. NPguy (talk) 16:33, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

"Right to enrich"

This section seem to be riddled with POV and SYN, that add/expand nothing on the topic of its main section "Agreement provisions", just a collection of positions/statements of each side.--PLNR (talk) 16:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I have expanded on what the NPT says to avoid the confusion around this "right to enrich" which is used differently in almost every quote and moved up the only paragraph that analyse the deal without some involved state statement on it. As for the rest IMO those paragraphs:

After the agreement was concluded, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stated that the pact ensures Iran's right to enrich.[34] Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov also stated that the agreement recognized Iran's right to enrichment, so long as the program is under IAEA control.[35] Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman agreed with this assessment of the language in the agreement, although he was displeased by it.[36]

By contrast, Secretary of State John Kerry, who led the American negotiation team, disputed that the agreement guaranteed a "right to enrich."[37]

Should be moved to the reactions sections and Kerry vague statement either expanded upon or removed.--PLNR (talk) 17:22, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

---

@NPguy:. Concerning those edit. I think that NPguy did some great job overall copy editing the section, but I believe he over looked the main problem I tried to outline above. That the current section does little to add/expand to the "Agreement provisions" section. It is a collection of POV statements and postering by involved parties, all that talk concerning the vague "right to enrich" or no right is redundant considering the very first point stipulated in the agreement:

All uranium enriched beyond 5% will either be diluted or converted to uranium oxide. No new uranium at the 3.5% enrichment level will be added to Iran's current stock..

Which is far much more specific concerning what they are allowed in terms of enrichment. As oppose to the vague Iranian assertion about right to enrich. political talk about red lines and more postering in the last two paragraphs. All of it should be trimmed or moved into section about various interpretations and views on final deal.

However, if we intent is to expand on non proliferation aspects concerning Fissile Materials. The first paragraph should mention enrichment and reprocessing concerns, even under safeguards, when there is no evident economic rationale. Because all the fuse is about just that:

While safeguards are an essential part of international confidence-building, they cannot alone provide assurance about a country’s future intent. The concern is that an enrichment or reprocessing facility under safeguards today could be used as the basis for break-out from non-proliferation commitments in the future, and Iran epitomizes this concern. link

Which is what this whole deal about, not right to enrich, but extra safeguards that if Iran follows NK path and decides to break off its cooperation with IEAE and build a nuclear weapon, it would need at least half a year todo so.--PLNR (talk) 06:56, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I cannot figure out what you are getting at. I believe it would be accurate to say that, from a P5+1 perspective, the goals of the Joint Plan of Action are to (1) lengthen the time before Iran could "break out" by producing a significant quantity of fissile material and (2) to increase the probability that the IAEA would detect early steps toward breakout in time to respond well before the breakout is successful. But the question of a "right to enrich" is an important political issue in the negotiations. NPguy (talk) 03:21, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I think that your summary is very concise, that is not how I felt about the initial section. Which didn't defined well what is "right to enrich", relaying too closely on the involved members political statements. Additionally, I feel that political issue in the negotiation should be tackled in the 'Negotiations' section, not in the 'Agreement provisions' section, which should be more focused on neural technical info.--PLNR (talk) 23:53, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you that this would work better if it were integrated into the negotiations section than as a separate section. But that is not a simple cut-and-paste exercise. NPguy (talk) 02:51, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Would that be WP:SYN if we change the vague 'right to enrich' to 'Right to 20-Percent Uranium Enrichment' in this section based on: source.--PLNR (talk) 07:32, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

No. The issue is the general right to enrich. This latest appears to be Salehi staking out a public position on the narrower point of whether Iran has given up enrichment to 20% permanently, or not. NPguy (talk) 04:31, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Existence of secret/informal/unpublished agreements

@NPguy:. Essential information for WP users about secret/informal/unpublished agreements with Iran can't be ignored just because Araqchi is "not chief negotiator - note dubious claim". According to links in the article Abbas Araghchi "Araqchi is Iran's top negotiator in the talks with the group of six nations." and he is the "Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs." There is a tendency to hide details of agreements with Iran. For example, the implementation agreement was not released by the agreement parties. Yagasi (talk) 09:51, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

There are questions about whether the LA Times misinterpreted or mistranslated what Araghchi said. Al Monitor reporter Laura Rozen questioned the translation [2] and later tweeted that he said (i.e. told her) he was misquoted or misinterpreted. Breaking stories often contain some errors, so it seems better to cite the later White House release of a document summarizing implementation details, which gets at the same issue. NPguy (talk) 04:43, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

The LA Times gives many details about "an informal, 30-page text" and Araqchi's interview with the Iranian Agency. Laura Rozen [3] simply tweeted that the interview was mischaracterized/mistranslated. What exactly was mistranslated? Laura Rozen could report this in "Al-Monitor" but she didn't. So I can't take her tweeting seriously as a RS. I think it's better to cite both LA Times and the White House and to remove the Dubious template. Yagasi (talk) 07:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you that a tweet is a thin reed and it would have been nice if Laura Rozen had included this in an article. I see two choices: move the paragraph that refers to the Araghchi interview into the implementation section or move the reference to the white house summary of technical understandings from implementation to negotiation. My preference is the former, since both follow the Joint Plan of Action. NPguy (talk) 03:12, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

My preference is either the implementation section and removing the Dubious template. Yagasi (talk) 12:51, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• But the problem is wider than that. The United Nations operates under legislation, its work is transparent and its resolutions are public. It would be expected that P5+1 group behaves in the same way and its agreements with Iran are made public to other countries. But actually we discover that Kerry led secret negotiations and that the Saudis were lied to and that there was no implementation date in the public interim agreement and that Araghchi argued there was a side agreement and that the EU or Ashton didn't agree to release the implementation agreement. I am afraid that all these will make us to use a whole a section for this topic. Yagasi (talk) 12:51, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I will move so it's all in the implementation section. We can consider after that whether to divide the implementation section. There's a period (Nov 24-Jan 20) when the implementation details were being worked out. Actual implementation followed Jan 20. On the question of "secrecy," I would note that the P5+1 process is connected indirectly to the UN (through UN security council resolutions) and the IAEA, but it is not a UN or IAEA process. It is a diplomatic process of negotiation and agreed action. It is quite common for agreements (in this case the Joint Plan of Action from November 24) to be public while implementation details are not. For example, IAEA safeguards agreement are public, but the Subsidiary Arrangements that specify their implementation details are not. They are "safeguards confidential" by the very terms of the safeguards agreement. NPguy (talk) 18:02, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

If what Araghchi statement refers to is part of the document which wasn't released to the Public, I think we can do without it. Starting the paragraph with "The text of the implementation agreement was not released to the public".--PLNR (talk) 23:12, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Looking back in history we can remember the agreement between Germany and the USSR and the secret protocol to it that referred to the future of other countries: Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland. The protocol was revealed only in 1945. Would you insist not to cover details of such a document if they were available to WP editors before 1945?

I think that the contents of the interview given by the top negotiator Araghchi must not be ignored. Yagasi (talk) 06:31, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything he said that wasn't already noted in the press release.--PLNR (talk) 11:08, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Quite probably that the "informal side agreement" (LA text) and the "technical understandings" (WH text) refer to the same text. But both links are useful and complement each other. LA link brings both American and Iranian points of view; the WH link represents one party only. The WH text was published later and contains more details about the implementation. According to the LA link, Araqchi speaks about a secret agreement and Harf denies existence of a secret agreement, but Carney says "the six parties were weighing how much of the text they could release publicly". The WH link speaks about summary (not the full text) of technical understandings that "specify the actions that Iran will take" but the provided implementation dates refer mainly to the relief for Iran. So we can conclude that there is an implementation document (it can be called "agreement", "text", "protocol" or any other name) but only selected issues of it are released publicly.

Now regarding your question. There are differences in how Araghchi's interview and the later "press release" refer to the authority of the joint commission and to Iran's R&D latitude (Araqchi: “All research into a new generation of centrifuges will continue.” Yagasi (talk) 12:19, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal

There are three articles dealing with the same topic, the negotiations between Iran and six leading countries over Iran's nuclear program. These are P5+1, the new one Comprehensive agreement on Iranian nuclear program, and this one. The division is confusing and seems unnecessary. I believe they should be merged into a single article. NPguy (talk) 17:17, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the new article is redundant at this time. --PLNR (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal. The topics are related, but distinct. P5+1 is the group that negotiates with Iran. Geneva interim agreement on Iranian nuclear program is the first agreement that was the result of those negotiations. Comprehensive agreement on Iranian nuclear program is what they hope to achieve by the end of the negotiations. This is akin to there being different articles on the Coalition of the willing, a group of countries that agreed to attack Iraq, the Battle of Nasiriyah, one of the group's earlier achievements, and the Battle of Baghdad (2003), one of the group's later achievements. --Joshua Issac (talk) 13:36, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

KhabarNegar

A new editor User:KhabarNegar has started to leave his mark on this article. I know from experience with his edits to Sanctions against Iran that he is persistent and uncompromising in insisting on his edits, however they may violate Wikipedia standards. He was blocked for his behavior there, but that blockage appears to have lapsed. Can we skip the long preliminaries and issue a prompt warning against edit warring or he will be blocked again? NPguy (talk) 02:34, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes you can, everything is possible here. and I don't want to ask you for edits and policies instead off attacks, because from experience I know you are able to make users blocked without showing any reason. Good job, You are an "ultra neutral user":) keep the good work. Regards, KhabarNegar ^Talk 11:35, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to revert you deleting sourced parts, cause I don't want anymore problem. Have fun, Goodby KhabarNegar ^Talk 11:40, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

For anyone interested, here is the edit in question: r598351349. It was editorialised, poorly written, and gave undue weight to the views of a single journalist. --Joshua Issac (talk) 09:22, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Not a treaty

There are "treaty" categories for this article. But the agreement is not a treaty. It is not legally binding. It's not even called an "agreement" but a "joint plan of action." Perhaps Wikipedia uses the term "treaty" loosely, but I didn't see any other examples of such loose usage and propose therefore to delete all the "treaty" categories. But first, I welcome other views. NPguy (talk) 23:50, 1 April 2014 (UTC)