Tensions in the Middle East eased this week after top level comments from both the US and Iran that raised the prospect, albeit remote, of nuclear talks between the two long-standing adversaries, writes Eoin O'Cinneide.
The slight thawing of relations was, however, punctuated by more hardline rhetoric from US National Security Advisor John Bolton, who laid the blame for a series of attacks on tankers in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month squarely at the Tehran administration’s door.
