Israeli TV: Iran deal, leaving 6,100 centrifuges spinning, to be signed by Tuesday

The deal taking shape between Iran and world powers will leave Iran with 6,100 centrifuges spinning, will involve a phased lifting of economic sanctions, and will be reached as scheduled early this coming week, Israeli television reported Friday night.

Negotiators have yet to resolve several key issues, including the fate of some 13,000 centrifuges that Iran will be barred from using under the deal, whether Iran will be allowed to continue its R&D work on advanced centrifuges, and what will become of Iran’s already enriched uranium, the report on Israel’s Channel 2 news said.

What has been agreed is that Iran will be allowed to continue to operate its secretive underground facility at Fordo, the TV station’s well-connected Middle East analyst Ehud Ya’ari said. Ya’ari, who did not give a source for his information, echoed the widespread Israeli description of the emerging deal as “bad.”

Earlier Friday, Reuters quoted a US State Department official saying that the decision by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to reach out to the leaders of the six powers on Thursday was “hopefully a sign that Iran is ready to make some of the tough decisions” needed for a deal.

Foreign ministers from the P5+1 nations — the US, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany — are due in the coming days to join the ongoing talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, ahead of the March 31 deadline for a political framework agreement.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry continued their meetings in Lausanne Friday.

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L), British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond (C) and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (L) talk after Secretary Hammond made a statement about their meeting regarding recent negotiations with Iran, in London on March 21, 2015 (AFP PHOTO / POOL / BRIAN SNYDER)

“There has been massive progress on all the issues,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters Friday morning. “There are still disputes over two issues — R&D (research and development) and UN sanctions.”

Also Friday, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel that the terms of the looming agreement were “incomprehensibly” bad and rejected the Obama administration’s contention that it would keep the regime a year away from accumulating enough fissile material for a bomb.

Estimating that a framework deal would indeed be signed soon, and that a full agreement would follow in June, this official lamented the US-led negotiators’ apparent readiness to remove sanctions without Iran being required to halt its global terrorist activities, and listed a host of areas in which Tehran was working against American, Israeli and moderate Arab interests without being made to pay a price.