Last year, while Jake Sullivan was traveling with his boss, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he quietly disappeared during a stop in Paris. He showed up again a few as later, rejoining Clinton's traveling team in Mongolia.
In between, Sullivan secretly flew to the Middle Eastern nation of Oman to meet with officials from Iran, people familiar with the trip said.
The July 2012 meeting is one of the Obama administration's earliest known face-to-face contacts with Iran and reveals that Sullivan who moved from the State Department to the White House earlier this year was personally involved in the administration's outreach to the Islamic republic far earlier than had been reported.
Senior administration officials had previously confirmed to The Associated Press that Sullivan and other officials held at least five secret meetings with Iran this year, preparing the way for an interim nuclear agreement signed in November by Iran, the United States and five other world powers.
Sullivan is just 37 and looks even younger. Even-keeled and pragmatic, Sullivan's temperament mirrors that of President Barack Obama, people close to him say. That helped him crack the tight-knit foreign policy team at the White House where he now serves as Vice President Joe Biden's national security adviser.
