Iran nuclear talks enter most ‘difficult phase’ as deadline extended again
Araz News: America claims “substantial progress” but the Vienna talks are prolonged until Friday as the parties fail to reach agreement by Tuesday’s deadline.
America claimed “substantial progress in every area” of its negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions on Tuesday, but said that another deadline for a deal would be ignored and the talks extended by 72 hours.
The meetings in Vienna have already been prolonged for a week after they missed their original target of reaching agreement by June 30. This immense diplomatic effort, designed to settle the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear programme, has now been renewed once again, this time until Friday.
Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, said on Tuesday the talks would run for a “couple of days”, but insisted this amounted to interpreting the original deadline “flexibly”, rather than a formal extension. “We are taking the time, the days we still need, to finalise the agreement,” she said, adding that the meetings were “difficult” and “sometimes tense”.
Minutes later, the US State Department released a statement saying that the talks would indeed be extended until Friday and an interim agreement, which presently constrains Iran’s nuclear programme, would “remain in place through July 10”.
Marie Harf, a State Department spokesperson, added: “We’ve made substantial progress in every area, but this work is highly technical and high stakes for all of the countries involved. We’re frankly more concerned about the quality of the deal than we are about the clock.”
The US administration has promised to submit any agreement to Congress by midnight Washington-time on Thursday, which corresponds to 6am on Friday in Vienna. This timetable aligns with the new deadline for concluding the talks.
Congress would then have 30 days to scrutinise a deal. If the moment is missed and an agreement comes after that date, Congress would have 60 days to review its terms, potentially giving opponents more time to mobilise their forces.
After 11 days in Vienna, John Kerry, the US secretary of state, is now expected to stay on and continue bargaining with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister. Even before the second extension, the talks had become a gruelling marathon. Last Sunday alone, Mr Kerry held four meetings with Mr Zarif, lasting almost five hours.
Then on Monday, all of the ministers from the “P5 plus 1” contact group – consisting of the Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany – met Mr Zarif for two sessions, the last ending at 20 minutes past midnight.
A person involved in the talks said: “The closer you get to a deal, the harder it gets,” adding: “Things are pretty tense. If you’re going to reach agreement then that means people giving a little and that’s never easy.”
The parties are believed to remain at loggerheads over several crucial issues, including the sanctions that would be lifted by a final agreement, the rights of international inspectors to enter Iranian military sites, and how Iran might account for past research into technology related to nuclear weapons.
Under those broad headings fall a multitude of separate questions. The latest to bedevil the negotiations is whether the lifting of sanctions should include relieving Iran of an arms embargo, first imposed by United Nations Resolution 1747 in 2007 – and then tightened by Resolution 1929 in 2010.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, told Interfax, an official news agency, that removing the arms embargo was the “only” remaining problem over “lifting sanctions from Iran”.
But a senior US official made clear that restrictions would have to stay in place, saying: “There will be an ongoing restriction on arms just like there will be ongoing restrictions regarding missiles.” Whether this would amount to a full embargo, however, was left unclear.
The official said that an agreement had “never been closer”, but all the pieces had not yet been assembled. If no deal is achieved after such an investment of time and effort, this would be “more than unfortunate – it would be a tragedy,” added the official.
The negotiations take place not only with Iran but also inside the “P5 plus 1”, which must try to reach a united stance on the outstanding issues. On Tuesday, the “P5 plus 1” foreign ministers held two meetings without Iran, presumably to agree their own negotiating position.
Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, left Vienna shortly afterwards, explaining that negotiations would restart at ministerial level on Thursday. “There is now a piece of drafting for officials to do and they’ll be continuing discussions during the night and into tomorrow [Wednesday],” he said. “We’ll all be back here tomorrow night and we look forward to making some solid progress then on Thursday when we reconvene.”
Mr Hammond added: “There will need to be some difficult decisions made on both sides if we’re going to get this done. But there is a clear will now on both sides to complete this agreement and to keep at it until we get there.”
By David Blair, Vienna
via telegraph
Write your comment.