Iran nuclear talks: Brothels, bike rides and Groundhog Day (diplomat calls talks "obsessional")

Reuters ^ | July 5

[Dave346]

VIENNA - Anyone who says it's all work and no play for the hordes of diplomats, officials, security agents, analysts and reporters who have descended on Vienna for what should be the finale of almost two years of Iran nuclear talks is dead wrong. As the manager of a local brothel said, when the Iran talks are in town, "business is booming".

He declined to say who were his most frequent customers, but made clear that, as far as he was concerned, the longer the negotiations between Iran and six world powers drag on, the better.

Some journalists are also pleased that this round of talks is in Vienna; when the last ministerial round, in March, was held in Lausanne, in notoriously expensive Switzerland, an Iranian reporter complained that he was having trouble affording short-term companionship.

Brothels are legal in Austria - so much so that last month an Austrian night club announced it was offering customers free sex in a summer-long protest over what its owner described as punitive tax rates.

TOO MUCH 'THIRD MAN'?

Vienna's Palais Coburg hotel, a 19th-century palace, has hosted most rounds of the talks since February 2014, and for all that time rumours have circulated about a network of underground tunnels connecting it to brothels and other establishments.

Other diplomats shed their business attire and enjoyed a splash in the public pools.

But their impatience is clear. "These talks have become obsessional," said one. "I'd quite like to do something else now. It's enough to make you go crazy."

Like the food, for instance. Luxury hotel or not, after 10 days of the same lunch buffet, its starts to get repetitive; the Iranian delegation has taken to bringing in main courses from a local Persian restaurant.

[HotHunt]

John Kerry just can't give it up. He wants, what was originally just a 6 month trial session, to go on forever, now that they have been extended so many times that they're in the beginning of their third year of "negotiations". Negotiations, my a**.

If the Iranians can keep getting concessions from Kerry and Obama and they can drag this mess out long enough, they will have had time to build the dang bomb that this whole thing was supposed to prevent to begin with. The Iranians are playing Kerry and Obama for the fools that they are.

Kerry and Obama want an agreement, any agreement, even if it says that the Iranians get everything they want and US gives up everything we wanted. These two guys aren't negotiators. They are politicians who want a feather in their caps, even if the feathers are from a crow.

[wastoute]

Well, if there is a brothel down the street I guess that explains things. For some reason I don’t seem to mind. I am shocked at my lack of outrage but it occurs to me John Fn Kerry and his friends are less trouble for us here while in a brothel over there. Maybe we could send 0bama and a bunch of Rat losers over to help out. Put it on our tab. They would probably spend much less in an Austrian brothel than DC.