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 Obama's threat on Tuesday to walk out of the nuclear talks if Iranian negotiators didn't 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 – on the details of how basic framework agreement will be implemented.