Talks to miss deadline
Iran and major powers admitted during tense talks yesterday that their fast-looming deadline to nail down a historic nuclear deal would be missed as they struggled to overcome major differences.
Officials in Vienna said however that tomorrow's target date would only be missed by a few days, with Iran saying there was "no desire or discussion yet" on a longer extension.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif meanwhile was set to return to Tehran for consultations, officials said, although the US said this was not a matter of concern.
IRAN NUKE DEAL: MAIN STICKING POINTS SANCTIONS: Iran's main purpose in coming to the negotiating table is to win a lifting of a complex web of economic and trade sanctions which have been gradually tightened over the past decade. The sanctions have choked the Iranian economy, frozen more than $100 billion in oil revenues in bank accounts around the world, and barred the country from lucrative oil markets. Tehran wants to see the immediate lifting of all EU, UN and US sanctions as soon as a deal is reached. But the P5+1 powers leading the talks -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- are insisting sanctions should only be lifted progressively as Iran takes steps to reduce the capabilities of its suspect nuclear programme. MILITARY SITES : Iranian leaders have repeated many times in the past weeks that they are opposed to inspections of sensitive military sites by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), insisting that it is a question of national sovereignty. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has made such inspections one of his "red lines" and refused interviews with Iranian scientists, and access to documentation. Some countries such as France are insisting that the need to address the lingering PMD issue is clearly defined and written into any final deal. SANCTIONS 'SNAPBACK': Western nations in particular are stressing that a mechanism needs to be put into place to allow any UN sanctions lifted under the deal to be quickly put back into place if Iran violates the accord. Iran however is believed not to be in favour of such an arrangement. LENGTH OF A DEAL: Global powers want to curtail the Iranian nuclear programme for at least 10 years, and some parts of it for longer. But Khamenei has opposed to that. Khamenei is also insisting that Iran be allowed to continue nuclear research and development during the period. |
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said as he joined the talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry and other foreign ministers that the six powers were prepared to walk away if needed.
"We still have very big challenges if we are going to be able to get this deal done," Hammond told reporters.
"No deal is better than a bad deal. There are red lines that we cannot cross and some very difficult decisions and tough choices are going to have to be made by all of us," Hammond said.
Earlier Sunday, EU foreign policy head Federica Mogherini said "political will" was still needed to get a deal after almost two years of intense diplomatic efforts to resolve the 13-year-old standoff.
"It is going to be tough, it has always been tough but not impossible," Mogherini told reporters.
Iran and the P5+1 group -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- are seeking to flesh out the final details of a accord that builds on a framework deal reached in Lausanne in April.
Zarif's deputy Abbas Araghchi suggested parts of that framework no longer applied because other countries had changed their positions.
"Some of the solutions found in Lausanne no longer work, because after Lausanne certain countries within the P5+1 made declarations... and we see a change in their position which complicates the task," he told Al-Alam television.
It is hoped a deal would end a standoff dating back to 2002 which has threatened to escalate into war and poisoned the Islamic republic's relations with the outside world.
But it must stand up to intense scrutiny by hardliners in Iran and the United States, as well as Iran's regional rivals Israel, widely assumed to have nuclear weapons itself, and Saudi Arabia.
According to the Lausanne framework, Iran will slash the number of its uranium enrichment centrifuges, which can make nuclear fuel but also the core of a bomb, shrink its uranium stockpile and change the design of the Arak reactor.
In return it is seeking a lifting of a complicated web of EU, US and UN sanctions which have choked its economy and limited access to world oil markets.
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