Rouhani urges world powers not to miss ‘exceptional opportunity’

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged the world powers currently holding talks with the Iranian negotiating team in Geneva to not miss the “exceptional opportunity” to reach a historic deal on Iran’s nuclear program.

“I hope that the P5+1 group make the most out of this exceptional opportunity that the Iranian nation has offered to the international community, so that we can reach a positive result within a reasonable time frame,” he was quoted as saying by official IRNA news agency.

“The West should not miss this unique opportunity,” Rouhani tweeted Saturday. “Our nation is participating in the Geneva negotiations with strong will [and] determination.”

“We want the world to know that our nuclear activities are solely for peaceful purposes [and] that we’re ready to address any rational concerns,” he added on Twitter.

Rouhani also attributed the “unique atmosphere” conducive to talks with the West to the recent presidential elections that brought him to power.

The negotiating sides should recognize that the current unique atmosphere was brought about by our people in our recent election. #IranTalks

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) November 9, 2013

Rouhani’s comments came as Western powers and Iran’s negotiations team led by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif were working to hammer out a landmark deal Saturday, on the third day of talks.

Zarif said Saturday evening that a deal was close but it remained unclear if it would be finalized Saturday, and talks would resume in 7-10 days if that were the case.

“If we do not reach an agreement tonight, the [nuclear] talks will [resume] in the next seven to 10 days,” he was quoted as saying.

Zarif held trilateral meetings with US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU’s top diplomat Catherine Ashton to possibly finalize the contents of a draft agreement Saturday. Zarif was also set to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Earlier, Iran’s deputy foreign minister warned that an initial “first-stage” agreement on Iran’s nuclear program must be reached and signed Saturday or the talks would move to a new round at a later stage.

“The negotiations will not go on tomorrow [Sunday]. Either they end tonight or there is another round,” Abbas Araqchi said.

Iran and six world powers were split on the terms of a nuclear deal because the French were holding out for tougher conditions, a Western diplomat who is in Geneva for the talks told The Associated Press. The diplomat said that five of the six powers were in agreement on their demands — with just France demanding stricter terms.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Tehran was resisting demands that it suspend work on a plutonium-producing reactor and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium to a level that cannot quickly be turned into the core of an atomic bomb.

Fabius’s remarks to France-Inter radio were the first to provide some specifics on the obstacles at the Geneva talks. He spoke by telephone from Geneva, where he, Kerry, Lavrov and counterparts from Britain and Germany, who are negotiating with Iran, consulted on how to resolve the obstacles at the talks.

Fabius mentioned differences over Iran’s Arak reactor southeast of Tehran, which could produce enough plutonium for several nuclear weapons a year once it goes online. He also said there was disagreement over efforts to limit Iran’s uranium enrichment to levels that would require substantial further enriching before they could be used as the fissile core of a nuclear weapon.

The six powers are considering a gradual rollback of sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. In exchange, they demand initial curbs on Iran’s nuclear program, including a cap on uranium enrichment to a level that cannot be turned quickly to weapons use.