Obama, Merkel urge Iran to take final steps to seal deal

US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday urged Iran to take the final steps needed to bring long-running nuclear talks to a successful conclusion.

“Iran must make the decisions necessary to resolve several remaining issues,” the White House said, in a statement released after the two leaders spoke by telephone.

They pressed for a “long term comprehensive deal.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a phone call Friday agreed to a possible meeting of foreign ministers Sunday at the Iran nuclear talks in Switzerland, the Russian foreign ministry said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Photo credit: John Macdougall/AFP)

“An agreement was reached on the possibility of holding a meeting on March 29 in Lausanne of the foreign ministers of the six powers acting as international mediators and Iran,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Kerry and Lavrov discussed the “work on a universal agreement on resolving the situation around the Iranian nuclear program” and noted the “closeness of the positions of Russia and the United States on many aspects of this process,” the ministry said.

Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said earlier Friday that there was a possibility that Lavrov would attend the talks but a decision had not yet been taken, quoted by TASS news agency.

In the latest sign a nuclear deal between world powers and Iran is imminent, British foreign minister Philip Hammond said Friday he was ready to join the talks this weekend. He would be joined there by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini.

Hammond, speaking to reporters on a visit to Washington, said the deal was close but that it was not clear how it would be presented or whether there would be a written accord.

“We’re hopeful that we’re going to be making that progress over the next 48 hours, and I’m ready to go whenever I need to go, over the weekend,” he said.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on March 23, 2015 (Photo credit: Fayez Nureldine/AFP)

A European diplomatic source said Mogherini would join the Iran nuclear talks on Sunday.

“She is expected in Lausanne on Sunday,” the European source said.

Earlier, the foreign ministry in London had said Hammond would head to the Lausanne talks over the weekend, but the minister said he would only fly to Switzerland if there was an immediate prospect of progress.

“I’m going back to London and I will go to Lausanne as soon as it’s appropriate to be there,” he said, explaining that the talks were in a highly technical phase.

Hammond noted that a previous round of talks held in Vienna last November failed, and said he was now wary of “going and sitting in a hotel room for two days.”

“It’s only an hour, an hour-and-a-half, flight away,” he said. “I will jump on a plane and go to Lausanne as soon as we sense that we’re getting to the point where we need to sit down.”

As to how the eventual deal might be presented, Hammond stressed it would be a political outline of an agreement that would be finalized in detail over the coming months.

And he was not able to say whether there would be a written statement representing “an understanding of the shape of the deal” and signed by all parties, including Tehran.

“Conceptually what’s envisaged is a statement of broad understanding, the political parameters,” he explained.

“We envisage being able to deliver a narrative. Whether that is written down or not I don’t think is the crucial issue, but it will be in headline form.”

Asked whether the narrative would be delivered in a joint statement agreed between Iran and the P5+1 world powers, Hammond said: “We’ll have to see how we handle that.

“The point, I think, is momentum. This will be a political statement, or perhaps political statements from the P5+1 and Iran,” he said.

Earlier, a spokesman for France’s Fabius, who has warned against a soft deal leaving Iran within reach of obtaining nuclear weapons, said he would join the talks on Saturday.

French Foreign Affairs minister Laurent Fabius at the French National Assembly in Paris, November 28, 2014 (Photo credit: Patrick Kovarick/AFP)

Fabius — and Hammond if he decides to fly — will join US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Lausanne.

After 18 months of intense negotiations, the fresh round of talks is aimed at reaching a deal before a final deadline of March 31.

The six negotiating powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — want Tehran to disable parts of its nuclear infrastructure and submit to tight inspections.

Iran insists its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, and wants its opponents to dismantle a complex web of economic sanctions that threatens to wreck its economy.