Iran and U.S. differ on optimism about talks

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Iran and the United States issued contrasting assessments on their progress toward an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program, as Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz met here with his Iranian counterpart.

In comments to the Iranian news media, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said that 90 percent of the technical issues had been worked out. Salehi said he hoped to resolve a remaining “point of difference” in a meeting Tuesday afternoon with Moniz.

A senior U.S. official was far more cautious in comments to reporters Tuesday morning.

“We have definitely made progress in terms of identifying technical options for each of the major areas,” said the official, who declined to be identified by name under the protocol for briefing reporters.

“There is no way around it: We still have a ways to go,” the official added. “Even within this space, we have some tough issues to address.”

The two sides are trying to meet a deadline of the end of March for completing the outlines of an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for removing sanctions.

That agreement would have “quantitative dimensions,” the U.S. official said, and would not be a mere list of broad principles. That would set the stage for finishing a detailed, comprehensive accord between six world powers and Iran by the end of June.

The clashing Iranian and U.S. statements may be partly a matter of tactics. By describing the agreement as virtually at hand, the Iranians may be trying to build public pressure on the United States and its European partners to make concessions on remaining issues, which include what sort of restrictions should be placed on the research and development of advanced centrifuges, the dif- ficult question of how quickly sanctions would be lifted and what sort of far-reaching verification measures would be put in place.

U.S. officials, who have generally been careful with pronouncements, know that they will need to defend the accord to a skeptical Congress and outside experts who suspect Iran wants the ability to produce weapons. Iranian officials have repeatedly said their nuclear work is for purely civilian purposes.

Pressing to meet the negotiating deadline, Secretary of State John Kerry and Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, met for about six hours Tuesday, along with their aides.