March 29, 2024
Iran nuclear talks at critical stage
Negotiations on Iran's nuclear program in Switzerland entered a critical stage Monday as top diplomats from six world powers and Tehran tried to reach agreement on key details of a possible accord.

"We're working very hard," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said outside the talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, as he returned from a lunch break. "Obviously it has a deadline tomorrow night."

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the United States is "not going to predispose failure" for the negotiations, but said the talks "are going to go down to the wire" as Tuesday's self-imposed midnight deadline set by Iran and the six countries seeking to limit its ability to build a nuclear weapon approaches.

A Western diplomat said there are three major outstanding issues, with the parties yet to agree on how long a pact should last, how quickly the U.N. and Western economic sanctions against Iran should be lifted, and how they would be reinstated if Iran violated the terms of the deal.

The diplomat also highlighted the urgency of the talks, saying it was "yes or no" time.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met Monday with his counterparts from the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany, the so-called P5+1 group.

The diplomats are trying to agree on a framework that would ensure Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons in exchange for removing the sanctions that have hurt Iran's economy.

A final version of the deal would be due by the end of June.

Meetings in Switzerland

For days Iranian officials and foreign ministers from the P5+1 group have been meeting in Lausanne to break an impasse in negotiations.

Officials said the sides have made some progress, with Iran considering demands for further cuts to its uranium enrichment program but pushing back on how long it must limit technology it could use to make atomic arms.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Zarif, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Russia's Sergei Lavrov and China's Wang Yi met for an hour and then broke off their discussions. They were expected to meet again later Monday.

A senior U.S. State Department official said Monday there was no decision yet on the issue of how Iran's existing stockpile of enriched material would be disposed of, after reports that Iran had indicated a willingness to send most of its enriched uranium to Russia.

"The issue of how Iran's stockpile would be disposed of had not yet been decided in the negotiating room, even tentatively," the official said in a statement.

"There is no question that disposition of their stockpile is essential to ensuring the program is exclusively peaceful. ... The metric is ensuring the amount of material remaining as enriched material will only be what is necessary for a working stock and no more," the official said.

However, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araqchi, said Sunday that sending the material to another country was not an option.

Another way to leave Iran with enough material to conduct medical research and generate power but not build a nuclear weapon is to dilute the current stock to lower levels of enrichment.

Uranium enrichment has been the chief concern in over more than a decade of international attempts to cap Iran's nuclear programs.

Over the past weeks, Iran has moved from demanding that it be allowed to keep nearly 10,000 centrifuges enriching uranium, to agreeing to 6,000. The officials said Tehran now may be ready to accept even fewer.
Tehran has said it wants to enrich only for energy, science, industry and medicine. But many countries fear Iran could use the technology to make weapons-grade uranium.

Obstacles remain

But a Western official said the main obstacles to a deal were no longer enrichment-related but instead the type and length of restrictions on Tehran's research and development of advanced centrifuges and the pace of sanctions-lifting.

Iran is also seeking an immediate end to the economic sanctions, while the international powers have said they want a phased withdrawal.

Western officials also voiced concerns that P5+1 member Russia, itself under U.S. and European Union sanctions over Ukraine, might have reservations about lifting energy sanctions over fears that bringing Iranian oil back into the market would further depress the price of oil.

Both officials demanded anonymity, the State Department official in line with U.S. briefing rules and the Western official because he was not authorized to discuss the emerging deal.

In a sign that a deal is unlikely on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will leave the talks, just a day after arriving, to return to Moscow for previously planned meetings, according to his spokeswoman Maria Zarakhova.

Lavrov will return to Lausanne on Tuesday if there is a realistic chance for a deal, Zarakhova added. (Source: VOA News)
Story Date: March 31, 2015
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