Iran negotiator says progress made, time for nuclear deal now

MUNICH — Iran’s foreign minister said Sunday that now is the time to reach a deal with his country on its nuclear program, and pushed for a lifting of sanctions, saying they were “a liability.”

Mohammad Javad Zarif met for about 90 minutes early Sunday with US Secretary of State John Kerry, their second meeting on the sidelines of an international security conference. He has also met with, or planned meetings with, all the other permanent members of the UN Security council and Germany, which have been negotiating with Iran.

Following the talks with Kerry, Zarif told the conference that progress had been made in the past months, and that there was now a window of opportunity to come up with a final deal.

“This is the opportunity to do it, and we need to seize this opportunity,” he said. “It may not be repeated.”

Zarif also said extending nuclear talks beyond the looming March deadline would not be “useful” or “conducive to an agreement.”

Extending the talks would not be “in the interest of anyone,” he said.

Details of Sunday’s discussion with Kerry were not immediately available, but the pair last met on Friday for two hours during which Kerry pressed Zarif on the Obama administration’s desire to meet an end of March target date for the outline of a nuclear agreement.

Formal negotiations with Iran are to resume soon with an eye toward agreeing on the political framework for a final deal that they hope to reach by the summer.

Speaking in Tehran, Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds the final word on policy decisions, said no deal would be better than a bad deal, but said he supported the two sides coming together.

“The Americans keep saying no deal is better than a bad deal; we also agree with that,” Khamenei said Sunday, according to the official Iranian IRNA news outlet. “No deal is better than a deal which would be in contradiction with the interests of our nation.”

Washington and its partners are hoping to clinch a deal setting long-term limits on Tehran’s enrichment of uranium and other activity that could produce material for use in nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is solely for energy production and medical research purposes. It has agreed to some restrictions in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from US economic sanctions.

Zarif said all sanctions against his country should be lifted, declaring that if they had been intended to stop its nuclear ambitions they had failed. He said when sanctions had been imposed, Iran had 200 centrifuges, and “now we have 20,000.”

“Sanctions are a liability, you need to get rid of them if you want a solution,” he said. “I think we have made good headway in resolving even that.”

Israeli officials have lobbied against a deal that would leave Iran with the ability to enrich uranium, saying sanctions should be kept in place.

On Friday, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said it was unlikely a deal would be signed before the deadline.

Speaking to Israel Radio, Yukiya Amano added that the Islamic Republic had so far been unresponsive to a series of questions regarding its nuclear program and had failed to adequately address concerns over its alleged attempts to develop atomic weapons.

“We have to be very careful because we know who we are negotiating with,” he said.

AFP contributed to this report.