Negotiations on curbing Iran’s nuclear program entered their final hours Tuesday before a self-imposed midnight deadline, with teams from Iran and a group of six world powers trying to resolve 18 months of talks into the outline of a comprehensive agreement.
Officials in Lausanne, Switzerland, expressed a mix of hope and caution about the work that remained to overcome differences on pieces such as how long the deal should last, how quickly economic sanctions against Iran should be lifted, and what to do if Iran violates the terms.
“There still remain some difficult issues,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told CNN. “We are working very hard to work those through. We are working into the night.”
As the ministers — barring Russia’s Sergei Lavrov, who was due back in Lausanne in the afternoon — convened for the first plenary of the day, diplomats cautioned the talks could run deep into the early hours of Wednesday.
Lavrov told reporters in Moscow he believed there was a good chance of success.
“The chances are high. They are probably not 100 percent but you can never be 100 percent certain of anything. The odds are quite ‘doable’ if none of the parties raise the stakes at the last minute, he said.
No more extensions?
Iran and the group that includes Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany have a history of extending their deadlines, having done so twice since agreeing to an interim nuclear deal in November 2013.
But U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Monday that the two sides are focused on keeping the Tuesday deadline.
“It has to mean something and the decisions don’t get easier after March 31,” Harf said.
A framework agreement would be followed by additional negotiations to craft the final deal by the end of June.
The United Nations and Western governments have imposed multiple rounds of sanctions demanding Iran suspend enrichment activity and other aspects of its nuclear program. Iran wants those to be lifted under the deal. In exchange, the group of world powers wants to ensure Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful, and in case Iran does work to develop a weapon, to leave the country no closer than a year away from doing so in order to have time to respond.
Iran has long denied wanting to build nuclear weapons and insists its program is solely for civilian purposes.
Both Iran and the six have floated compromise proposals, but agreement remains elusive. Western officials said Tehran has recently backed away from proposals it previously indicated it could accept, such as on shipping enriched uranium stocks to Russia.
‘This is the moment’
“Our feeling is that this is the moment,” a Western diplomat close to the talks said. “Either we get a deal or not. Because if we don’t come out of this period with some type of framework, it’s going to be difficult to explain why we would get one on June 30.”
Assessments from negotiators close to the talks have been swinging between pessimism and optimism since they arrived in Lausanne nearly a week ago. All sides say an agreement is possible but uncertain.
With the U.S. Congress warning it will consider imposing new U.S. sanctions on Iran if there is no agreement this week, there is a sense of urgency in the talks.
“With Congress, the Iranian hawks and a Middle East situation where nobody’s exactly getting on, I’m not convinced we’ll get a second chance if this fails,” the Western diplomat said.
President Barack Obama has threatened to veto any sanctions moves by the Republican-dominated Congress.
Officials close to the talks said the main sticking points remain the removal of U.N. sanctions and Iranian demands for the right to unfettered research and development into advanced nuclear centrifuges after the first 10 years of the agreement expires.
The six powers want more than a 10-year suspension of Iran’s most sensitive nuclear work. Tehran, which denies it is trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability, demands a swift end to sanctions in exchange for temporary limits on its atomic activities.
Iran said the key issue was lifting sanctions quickly.
“There will be no agreement if the sanctions issue cannot be resolved,” Majid Takhteravanchi, an Iranian negotiator, told Iran’s Fars news agency. “This issue is very important for us.”
Even if a framework deal is reached by the Tuesday deadline, officials say it could still fall apart when the two sides attempt to agree on all the technical details for the comprehensive accord by the end of June.
Some material for this report came from Reuters.
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