Iran talks failure ‘not ruled out,’ German source says

Talks seeking a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and major powers may yet fail, a German diplomatic source said Monday during a break in negotiations in Vienna on the eve of a deadline.

“We are not there yet… We should not underestimate that important questions remain unresolved. There will not be an agreement at any price. If there is no movement in decisive areas, a failure is not ruled out,” the source said.

The comments came after a day of talks between the foreign ministers of Iran and six major powers — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France — in the Austrian capital, ahead of a July 7 deadline.

They are seeking an accord that ends a 13-year-old standoff over Iran’s nuclear program by scaling down its activities in return for relief from painful sanctions.

State Department spokesman John Kirby described the fact that foreign ministers from all seven countries met as “not insignificant,” indicating the sides were working hard to reach a deal, though gaps remained.

“There has been progress made, there’s no doubt about that, but there still remain disagreements and still differences over some particular factors that have precluded thus far reaching a deal,” he said.

He added that the US would walk away from the talks if need be.

Kirby denied July 7 had been set as a deadline, but only a technical extension of provisions reached in an interim agreement last year.

On Monday, an Iranian official suggested that his delegation had never really considered Tuesday as a deadline.

“July 7, July 8, we do not consider these dates as those dates we have to finish our job,” the official, who asked not to be named, told reporters.

Last week, an earlier deadline was effectively extended by seven days to July 7 by extending the terms of an interim deal from November 2013.