Key dates in the Obama administration’s contacts with Iran.
January 2009: President Barack Obama, in his first inaugural address, suggests a willingness to open contacts with Iran.
March 2009: Obama records the first of an annual series of video message to Iranians to mark their New Year's celebration, calling for a "new beginning" in the countries' relationship.
June 2009: Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad wins a second term in a disputed elections, sparking the "Green Revolution" that is quickly, and brutally, suppressed. The Obama administration is criticized for not reacting more assertively.
July 2009: Iran detains three American hikers, one woman and two men, who enter Iranian territory from Iraq, apparently by mistake. The Obama administration begins backchannel efforts through Oman and its leader, Sultan Qaboos, to free them, and in the process, establishes a clandestine diplomatic channel for the nuclear negotiations, as well.
October 2009: Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns meets with a top Iranian negotiator on the sidelines of nuclear talks at a villa near Geneva. Burns is later promoted to deputy secretary of state.
September 2010: Iran releases the female hiker through Oman.
September 2011: Iran releases two male hikers, again through Oman. Informal contacts between working-level American and Iranian officials begin in earnest at various locations, including the United Nations and Oman, and through the Swiss, who represent U.S. interests in Iran in the absence of diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran.
February 2013: The U.S. and its partners — France, Great Britain, Russia, China and Germany — open a new round of nuclear negotiations with Iran in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
March 2013: Seeking to open a separate channel with the Iranians, Burns and Vice President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, fly secretly to Muscat, the Omani capital, for a meeting with Iranian officials.
May 2013: Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Muscat for talks with Qaboos largely focused on ensuring the viability of the Omani channel ahead of Iran's presidential election in June.
June 2013: Hassan Rouhani wins the Iranian election, replacing hardliner Ahmedinejad and promising relief from sanctions that are crippling the country's economy . He signals a new willingness to engage on the nuclear issue.
August 2013: Qaboos becomes the first foreign leader to visit Rouhani in office. Rouhani and Obama exchange letters. Burns and Sullivan hold two more secret meetings with Iranian officials in the run-up to the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in late September that Rouhani will attend. A framework for an initial nuclear deal begins to emerge as do plans for a potential meeting in New York between Obama and Rouhani.
September 2013: Efforts to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Obama and Rouhani fail, fail, but they speak by phone in the first conversation between a U.S. and Iranian leader since 1979. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif meets Kerry and other members of the nuclear negotiating team for the world powers on the sidelines of the General Assembly. Obama briefs Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the talks at a White House meeting on Sept. 30. The next day, Netanyahu delivers a powerful warning about Iran's intentions and untrustworthiness in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly. In the following days, U.S. officials brief their negotiating partners on the clandestine meetings with Iran.
October 2013: Burns and Sullivan hold a fourth secret meeting with Iranian officials, and then a fifth, this time joined by chief U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman. The framework nuclear deal hashed out in the early secret talks begins to gain clarity. A new round of talks between Iran and the World powers is held in Geneva, though no agreement is reached.
November 2013: The U.S. and its partners again meet with Iran in Geneva. On Sunday, they reach an initial deal on curbing Iran's nuclear program.
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