VIENNA  A public diplomacy campaign by the Obama administration to convince world opinion that Iran was reneging on the Lausanne framework agreement in April has seriously misrepresented the actual diplomacy of the Iran nuclear talks, as my interviews with Iranian officials here make clear.

President Barack Obamas threat on Tuesday to walk out of the nuclear talks if Iranian negotiators didnt return to the Lausanne framework  especially on the issue of IAEA access to Iranian sites  was the climax of that campaign.

But what has really been happening in nuclear talks is not that Iran has backed away from that agreement but that the United States and Iran have been carrying out tough negotiations  especially in the days before the Vienna round of talks began it made in Lausanne. That reaction was portrayed in media as evidence that Iranian negotiators were being forced to retreat from the Lausanne agreement.

In fact it was nothing of the sort. The idea that IAEA inspectors could go into Iranian military facilities at will, as Rhodes had suggested, was a crude oversimplification that was bound to upset Iranians. The reason was more political than strategic. It is a matter of national dignity, one Iranian official in Vienna explained to me.

The Iranian negotiators were still pushing back publicly against Rhodess rhetoric as the Vienna round began. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi appeared to threaten a reopening of the provisions of the Lausanne framework relating to the access issue in an interview with AFP Sunday. [N]ow some of the