Iran's Nuclear Deal Our World

The president was very clear. This had to be a good agreement. No

agreement was better than a bad agreement.

These negotiations were essentially about curbing Iran's nuclear

programme. In return for suspension and then later on lifting of

international sanctions against Iran. I think it certainly made

doing business much more difficult to have social media everywhere.

Those times of eating together and breaking bed together are always

useful in building the relationships you need when you are in the midst

of such a tough, tough negotiation -- breaking red. I ask everyone to

put their iPhone in the fridge. I think from the outset, most people

were rather sceptical. And thought the chances to get a deal where

below 50% because everything came together, enormous technical

difficulties, complicated technical questions, and on the other hand,

the political framework, which was also extremely difficult. We had to

deal with two challenges, a technical challenge and a political

challenge. It is about centrifuges, stabilising, and quickly, you need

people who are experts. I'm not an expert. I became a little more

knowledgeable. In all of the negotiations, it is

not only a negotiation with the run, but within your own government --

Iran. It is negotiating with each of the partners sitting at the table,

and then with the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany

and the EU have to come to an agreement and then an agreement with

Iran. When talks were going on like that, it was ever just a good

nightmare for everyone. Journalists included. -- logistical. Every time

there was an extension or they mist a deadline. Can you say a few words?

Hello, Scott. As soon as our live broadcast was over, we would all

rush to the hotel reception, extending our rooms or booking new

ones for the next round -- missed a deadline. Good luck.

I don't think any of us knew how this process would evolve, but over

the two years, the number of people of course grew, that were directly

involved in the process, because we had to expand the team according to

the needs. But it is also part of our daily bread in terms of the

policies and offices Switzerland has provided for the past 150 years, so

it is also in edgings. Each time a minister arrived in Geneva, the

chief of protocol in Geneva and myself were at the airport greeting

the Minister, and our minister always welcomed him with a personal

letter and some Swiss chocolate. Obviously when you start to welcome

these dignitaries, and the amount of security and the amount of cars that

arrived when I was standing in front of the hotel, for some minute you

feel like you are looking at a Hollywood movie and being part of

it. It all started at the beginning around 17 rooms, bearing in mind

that a hotel has 168 rooms. At the end of the talks, the hotel was

fully booked. This was the working room, the heart of operations, but

also my personal room, because one person had to stay all of the time,

24 hours, in this hotel. We kept only one room. I had to transform

this room and the working room into the heart of operations. There were

about ten persons in this room for the meetings, but also my team came

for the day, and they worked day and night in this room. It was a

relatively small room for a relatively big group of people, with

many computer screens on the table, pizza boxes everywhere. At the end

of the day, it felt more like a student's home than a luxury hotel.

We weren't surprised at all Wii with the target of intelligence agencies.

We used to joke the number of bugs in a room would cancel each other

out. Everybody wants to learn about the other side's table before they

enter a game, as well as countries interested in the outcome of the

process. We knew about the sensitivity of the negotiations, for

example, when I had my meetings with my own team, which we had every

morning, I asked everyone to put their iPhone in the fridge.

Allegations were made, and these allegations are investigated by our

federal prosecutor office. And this investigation is still ongoing, so I

cannot talk here on the detail. I think it certainly made doing

business much more difficult to have social media everywhere, and to have

our every movement recounted on Twitter. My wife was always

e-mailing me to ask why I was eating pizza on a random Friday night and

not getting on a plane home. In Lausanne, the talks were dragging on

and on, so once when a European diplomat was coming back to the

hotel, I him and said for heavens sake, please told me how many more

days you think we might be here --I grabbed him. He came back with a bag

People ask whether I got to know the Iranians. We all got to know the

Iranians. And whether we started to really understand each other. I have

no doubt we understand each other better. You can't spend that many

hours with each other and not. We certainly got to know each other's

lives. We both became grandparents during this time. And so we shared

videos of our grandchildren. That did not change how tough we were

with each other in the negotiations, because he had a responsibility to

the national interest of his country, and I had a responsibility

to the national interest of my country.

I got a tipoff from a source that meet the Iranians Foreign Minister

had arranged the US counterpart to go and dying in this Persian and

strong, experienced Iranians food -- dying. I rushed to that restaurant

and sneaked into the place, and guess who I saw? The top brass of US

negotiating team in that restaurant dining and eating Persian food.

We had the full delegation, John Kerry, we had a phone call saying

they were coming to our place, we receive them and they had dinner

here. He was leaving. I asked him the

population of Iran, they are waiting for this negotiation, I hope you

will get success from this negotiation. He told me did you say

this to Mr Zarif? I said I didn't, I'm telling it to you. So he said I

will call him and tell him what you told me.

There were two Mac dining rooms, one for the P5 plus one and the European

Union, one for the Iranians, that was in part because our dining room

had alcohol. And the Persian dining room did not. But as the talks went

on, our Minister Zarif invited several of us to dine with the

Iranians team, which was a very good thing to do, and the food was

fantastic! And those times of eating together,

breaking bread together, always are useful in building the relationships

you need when you're in the mixed of such a tough, tough negotiation.

In Lausanne, the talks broke for a few days because the Iranians

President's mother passed away. The president's brother was a key member

of the Iranians negotiating team all throughout the negotiations. On the

morning of that day, the US team went to the Iranians counterparts,

headed by John Kerry, to consult the president's brother.

March, 2015 was a turning point because it was now or never. It took

place in Lausanne. We had the framework agreement. But I think

Lausanne, where the agreement was in a way crystallised, framed, and then

negotiations and the endgame... It was step-by-step.

I think what was the hardest part of Lausanne were those last two days

when we were trying to drive to a conclusion, no one had any sleep. We

thought we might not get there. We thought we were close so we all

agreed to stay one more day. And indeed we then got to the parameters

that became the basis for the final 27 days in Vienna.

I will never forget the moment where the EU told me that they need to

organise and go ahead with the press conference. We were waiting for 72

hours for this moment. It was a very emotional moment behind the curtain.

And then came the moment when they asked me to open the curtain.

Today we have taken a decisive step, we have reached solutions on keeper

amateurs of a joint comprehensive plan of action.

We will make progress, we have made progress and we will make progress.

Progress was made on the way forward. We believe we have made

progress. We had to make substantial further progress. -- hope to.

When Federico Motta in Ewa was chairing a round with the ministers

in Vienna during the endgame, when she had a heated argument with the

UN Foreign Minister and he said, never threaten an Iranian and the

Russian Foreign Minister came in, nor a Russian! Then things calmed

down very easily, but we had similar kinds of exchanges. -- Federica

Mogherini. We also had walkouts when I stood up and said I'm not going to

continue for the day, but then we resumed early the next day. Allows

Arif, are you going to have a deal? Are you going to have a deal? We

have made progress today. Progress is being made. We are making

progress, we need to make more progress.

In Vienna, the talks were dragging on and on. They had to write the

text of the final deal. And it was proving to be far more difficult

than they had anticipated. So they missed the deadline of July the

first, then they extended it to July the seventh, then July the 10th.

They ended up on a rolling deadline basically.

Just before midnight when the Iranians negotiator posted something

on his Instagram, the picture of Iranians supreme leader's hand as if

he's signing of something -- Iranians. There is no commentary.

But that picture was speaking for itself. That's when we thought there

might be a deal. Later on our cameraman caught the

Iranian negotiating team late night in their room. They were very

relaxed, happy and smiley, going through that text, which ended up

being the deal. For sure that the deal was done

three o'clock in the morning on the 14th of July. This is actually when

we finalised the texts. I felt tremendously relieved at that

moment. It was so overwhelming that I can't even say it was happy, it

was just relief it was done. I think that the Iranians nuclear

deal made a huge contribution to solve the nuclear problem in a

peaceful way -- Iranians. I'm strongly convinced if we had not

reached this solution in summer of 2015 then we would have been

confronted with a very difficult situation, including a discussion on

military options. When we reached success and it was a

private moment for everyone to reflect on what we had done, and

each of the ministers made a statement, and every statement was

truly eloquent. And Secretary Kerry was the last person to speak. And he

recounted that when he was 21 he went off to war in Vietnam. He made

a commitment that he would do whatever he could in his life to

make sure that there was never wore ever again. And that's what he was

about in this negotiation. The room was absolutely still. There was

quiet. And then everyone, including the Iranians, applauded. Because I

think for all of us we understood that what we had done was to try to

ensure peace, not war. A mixed weekend of whether coming

up, warm and muddy for some, much pressure for others, wet for a few.

It