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In the Swiss city of Lausanne, nestled beside the Jura Mountains, US and Iranian diplomats are racing against time. The deadline to arrive at a framework agreement, after a year of negotiations, is the end of March 2015.
American diplomats want to slow Iranian nuclear enrichment on the path to a bomb, while Iranians across the negotiating table hope to end sanctions that are crippling the Islamic republic.
Only 10 days before a framework agreement is due, a crowd in the capital Tehran chanted “death to America.” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei echoed their chant, he said, because of the sanctions that are keeping out international investment.
In this episode of ‘Parts Uknown’, CNN’s Anthony Bourdain breaks through red tape to make his way into the Islamic republic. Encountering impromptu singing sessions by Iranian men, letting the astounding Medieval architecture of Isfahan dazzle him, and kicking back with Iranian teens’ muscle cars and ketchup-covered takeout pizza, Bourdain adds human faces to a country with whom the United States knows tense relations.
Inside Iran, Bourdain encounters Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and his wife. Though the Iranian-American Jason Rezaian said he was optimistic about the future of the country, soon after his wife and he were both detained on charges of espionage. While they have released Mrs. Rezaian, President Obama has pushed for Iran to free her husband.
Iranian society has its conservative streaks. Religious police known as the Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed, or the Basij, enforce prohibitions against women for violations like not covering up or, as Mrs. Rezaian pointed out, watching sports with crowds of men. But the Rezaians reminded Bourdain that, unlike the close US ally of Saudi Arabia, Iran permits women to drive and to vote.
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