As another deadline elapses, nuclear deal remains elusive
US official says agreement won’t lift arms embargo on Iran and sanctions on its ballistic missile program
Negotiators at the Iran nuclear talks broke through their second deadline in a week on Tuesday, raising new questions about the ability of world powers to cut off all Iranian pathways to a bomb through diplomacy. The discussions, already in their 12th day, were prolonged until possibly Friday.
“We knew it would have been difficult, challenging and sometimes hard,” said Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief. She said the negotiations would continue despite hitting some “tense” moments, and the US State Department declared the current interim nuclear arrangement with Iran extended through July 10.
As the latest target date arrived for a deal that would set a decade of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, US Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and other top diplomats huddled in Vienna in search of a breakthrough.
All had spoken of deep differences remaining, and there was no public indication they had resolved disputes ranging from inspection rules on suspicious Iranian sites to limits on Tehran’s research and development of advanced nuclear technology.
“The last, difficult, political issues, we have to solve,” Mogherini said.
“We have never been closer, than we are now on this agreement and we are still not where we need to be to finalize a deal,” a senior US administration official said.
Negotiators were 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.
“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 told reporters.
“You can get 95 percent of the way, and you can’t get there in the end.”
The official said there was astonishment in the US delegation at media speculation that a deal was within reach as the talks were 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 said, 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 said, adding it would be “a tragedy” if after months of work the talks collapsed.
The official also confirmed one more clear difference that has resurfaced in recent days, saying the US would oppose Iran’s demand that the nuclear agreement include the lifting of the UN arms embargo on the country. The official said the US is insisting that any new UN Security Council resolution pertaining to Iran retain an arms ban and ballistic missile restrictions.
Iran has been seeking from world powers an exclusion of its ballistic missile development program from sanctions related to its controversial nuclear program. However, world powers negotiating see the ballistic missiles as a delivery system for nuclear devices.
As he left the talks for an economic summit at home, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said fewer than 10 major differences were still to be ironed out, including access to Iranian sites for international monitors. He said questions related to the easing of sanctions on Iran had been decided, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported. Lavrov said he could return to the talks later in the week.
Diplomats had extended their discussions by a week when they missed their goal of a pact by June 30, after passing previous deadlines in July 2014 and last November. For Kerry and his team, pressure is increasing from skeptical US allies and members of Congress. If the accord isn’t sent to Congress by Thursday, its month-long review period would be doubled to 60 days, meaning the Obama administration couldn’t lift any economic sanctions on Iran during that time.
In Tehran on Tuesday, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization declared it had reached a “general understanding” in parallel talks with the UN nuclear agency on “joint cooperation.” The Iranians have made similar claims previously, and it was unclear if any process was established for the International Atomic Energy Agency’s long-stymied investigation of past nuclear weapons work by Iran — a demand of Washington and its international partners in the negotiations.
Kerry met early Tuesday in a baroque, 19th-century palace with the foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia and then briefly with Zarif. Russia’s Lavrov and China’s Wang Yi left on Tuesday, and the EU’s Mogherini said other ministers were likely to depart and return.
“We are taking these negotiations day by day to see if we can conclude a comprehensive agreement,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement, adding that Kerry would remain in Vienna.
The US is in a tough spot. President Barack Obama has expended significant political capital on finalizing an agreement that has prompted suspicion from Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia, and from America’s closest Mideast ally, Israel, and deep ambivalence even among congressional Democrats. They’re concerned that the accord would leave Iran’s nuclear infrastructure largely intact and compel the West to provide the leading US-designated state sponsor of terrorism with potentially hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of economic relief from international sanctions.
