U. S. makes final push for Iran nuclear deal
Kerry stays on in Switzerland, but two sides at odds over two key issues
A final push to settle the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear ambitions was in the balance Sunday night as John Kerry postponed his return to the U. S. to press on with talks in Switzerland.
The U. S. secretary of state spent a fourth day in meetings in Lausanne with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, as the clock ticked toward Monday’s deadline for an agreement.
Sensing the possibility of a historic deal after more than a decade of diplomacy, the world’s most powerful foreign ministers converged on the town. They included Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Wang Yi, his Chinese counterpart.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said: “A comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran is in all our interests. Both sides now need to work intensively to bridge the remaining differences. That will mean some tough choices if we are to reach what would be a historic deal.”
The talks with Iran are being conducted by the UN Security Council’s five permanent members — China, France, Russia, Britain and the U. S. — plus Germany.
Iran and the “P5+ 1” are believed to remain at odds over two key issues: the pace at which sanctions would be lifted under a final deal and the right of Iran’s scientists to continue developing advanced centrifuges.
But the negotiators are close to resolving perhaps the most contentious question of all: The U. S. wants to ensure that Iran’s scientists would need at least a year to produce enough weapons- grade uranium for one nuclear bomb.
Iran is believed to have provisionally agreed to meet this demand by sacrificing at least a third of its 9,900 operational centrifuges and exporting almost all of its 7.9 tons of low- enriched uranium.
In return, Iran wants all sanctions to be lifted as soon as a deal is signed. Kerry, for his part, will agree only to a gradual easing of the economic pressure, linked to the steps that Iran would take.
“We’re getting to the final hours where people have really got to ask what their red lines are — and if they’re really red lines,” a diplomat in Lausanne said.
The prospect of a deal is sufficiently realistic to alarm Israel’s government.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes that allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium on any scale would amount to a capitulation.
“This deal, as it appears to be emerging, bears out all of our fears — and even more than that,” he told his cabinet on Sunday.
Israeli diplomats feel that the U. S. administration no longer heeds their concerns — and that Britain’s position is identical to Washington’s.
They have focused their effort on the U. S. Congress and on France, which has adopted the most hawkish stance of the western powers. Last week, Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli intelligence minister, visited Paris to voice his country’s fears.