Iran nuke negotiators weigh extending talks
VIENNA — With a deadline for an agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program just a day away, American officials finally acknowledged yesterday that the two sides would not reach a deal by Tuesday’s deadline, but would probably extend the talks a second time to explore a series of possible solutions.
It was unclear how long the talks would be prolonged or what additional sanctions relief Iran might receive as negotiators wrestled with differences such as how much nuclear fuel Iran could produce, how long the accord would last and how intrusive inspections would be, among other issues.
US Secretary of State John Kerry raised the idea of extending the talks in a meeting yesterday with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister. It was not clear whether a document detailing new points of convergence would be issued on Tuesday in return for an extension in the talks.
“Our focus remains on taking steps forward toward an agreement, but it’s only natural that just over 24 hours from the deadline, we are discussing a range of options,” said a senior US State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “An extension is one of those options. It should come as no surprise that we are also engaged in a discussion of the options with the Iranians.”
Earlier on Sunday, US President Barack Obama said that the gaps in the negotiations were still “significant.”
Obama appeared to rule out giving in to one of Iran’s central demands: that as part of any final deal, the United States and its partners lift, quickly and permanently, all the nuclear-related sanctions against Iran.
“I think Iran would love to see the sanctions end immediately, and then to still have some avenues that might not be completely closed, and we can’t do that,” Obama said, referring to avenues for producing a nuclear weapon.
But he also held out hope that an agreement, if it could be struck, would change the nature of the relationship with Iran for the first time in more than three decades.
“What a deal would do,” he said, “is take a big piece of business off the table and perhaps begin a long process in which the relationship not just between Iran and us but the relationship between Iran and the world, and the region, begins to change,” Obama said Sunday in an interview on ABC.