Washington--In this hi-tech age of gadgets and gizmos, a simple whiteboard found in classrooms around the globe was the tool that helped negotiators seal the complex parameters of a Iran nuclear deal.
Until the final hours, US diplomats who had spent eight days locked in a Lausanne hotel hammering out the outlines of what could be one of the most complex arms-control treaties ever feared their efforts would be in vain.
Three times US Secretary of State John Kerry's plane was put on stand-by to leave. Luggage was collected from his team of negotiators and staff as well as from the travelling press. Three times the flight was pushed back.
"It was quite a rollercoaster. We'd get close, we kept on changing the plane schedule. It would go, it wouldn't go. We had to reset the clock," said a senior State Department official.
In the last two days, they sensed the deal was close. "You know what the elements are, but knocking it out is another story altogether," the official said.
- Solving the jigsaw -
For the Americans, they had to reach a complicated formula of interlocking parts to ensure that it would take Iran a year to gather enough fissile material to build a bomb by reducing stocks and cutting back its facilities.
In return, Iran was seeking an end to a labyrinth of global sanctions, which Kerry was insistent would not all be lifted in one fell swoop while demanding a tough verification process to ensure Tehran was sticking by the deal.
It was the highly-organized Under Secretary Wendy Sherman, who has led the negotiations, who early on hit on the idea of a whiteboard as a way of illustrating what she has long referred to as a "Rubik's cube."
AFP
