US says no Iran deal would be a ‘tragedy’

Negotiators are taking the talks “day by day,” as they seek to slot together the last pieces of a “Rubik’s cube” into a complex negotiation which has lasted almost two years now, a senior US official says.

“Sometimes things have to align in … a moment of history to be able to do something. We are probably closer than we’ve ever been, because there is more of an alignment, but whether it clicks into that final cube we don’t yet know,” the official tells reporters.

“You can get 95 percent of the way, and you can’t get there in the end.”

The official says there was astonishment in the US delegation at media speculation that a deal was within reach with the talks playing out behind closed doors in Vienna.

“I quite frankly think, expectations need to be based more on a sense of reality. This is very, very hard tough, stuff,” the official says, asking not to be identified.

“If very tough political decisions, hard choices, can get made soon, I do believe we can get to an agreement … it is possible,” the official says, adding it would be “a tragedy” if after months of work the talks collapsed.

— AFP