29 Mar 2024
Wednesday 1 April 2015 - 03:14
Story Code : 157963

Diplomats to continue Iran nuclear talks into Wednesday

Negotiations over Irans nuclear program blew past a Tuesday deadline, U.S. officials said, with diplomats struggling to reach consensus on the difficult issues of sanctions, enrichment research and future limits.

The Obama administration had committed itself to reach a broad political agreement with Iran and a group of world powers by March 31, with three more months to nail down many complex details. The decision to keep talking suggests negotiators believe an accord in some form is still possible. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who had been planning to return to Washington if there were no agreement by midnight Tuesday, switched gears and announced shortly before 9 p.m. local time that he would be staying for at least one more day.

Weve made enough progress in the last days to merit staying until Wednesday, said the State Departments acting spokesperson, Marie Harf, adding, There are several difficult issues still remaining.?

The continuation of talks does not signal an end to the drama. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that President Obamas patience with the negotiations is not limitless, .

Its time for Iran to make the serious commitments that they know the international community is expecting them to make to reach an agreement, he said.

He noted that an interim agreement in which Iran limited its nuclear output while negotiating a final deal remains in effect until the end of June. But, Earnest added, If were not able to reach a political agreement, then were not going to wait all the way until June 30th to walk away.

The extension was surprising, partly because State Department officials had been adamant that the March 31 deadline they set when an interim agreementwas extended in Novemberwas real.

In fact, the deadline was mostly about American politics. The Obama administration is trying to get an agreement with Iran before congressional criticsget a chance to pass bills requiring their approval of a potential nuclear deal, or imposing more sanctions on the Islamic state.

Severalbills are pendingthat would give Congress the option to reject a final accord. Few lawmakers reacted Tuesday to the latest developments in the talks.

But Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Okla.), said that the prolonging of talks into an extra day, in the face of Iranian intransigence and duplicity, proves once again that Iran is calling the shots, and predicted Obama would make further concessions to Tehran.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), author ofa bill that would impose new sanctionson Iran, said that Congress should vote on that measure instead of another extension of nuclear talks.

However, Congress is on break until April 14, and some members have urged the administration not to be a prisoner of an artificial deadline.

In Lausanne, where the talks are being held, U.S. negotiators led by Kerry held a grueling schedule of meetings Tuesday with diplomats from Iran, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, starting shortly after sunrise and stretching late into the night. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi departed the talks to return to Beijing. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who left Monday saying he would return when a deal looked realistic, flew back from Moscow to rejoin the negotiations. He pronounced the prospects for an agreement good.

The talks, which began in 2003 but only picked up momentum a decade later, have already produced tentative accords on dozens of issues. But negotiators have cautioned repeatedly that nothing is truly settled until agreements are reached on all issues.

The United States and its five negotiating partners are aiming for a deal that will block Iransability to build nuclear weaponsfor at least a decade, with diminishing restrictions in later years. For Iran, which insists it only wants to use nuclear technology for peaceful, civilian purposes, the primary goal is to getinternational sanctionslifted because they have been disastrous for its economy.

[A framework? A deal? The semantics of the talks.]

Despite progress at almost every stage of the negotiations, the final weeks have been consumed by negotiations over differences that are the hardest to bridge.

Iran wants sanctions lifted quickly, while the world powers are holding out for a more gradual easing. The United States and its allies want restrictions to continue in the final five years of a 15-year accord monitoring and limiting Irans nuclear program, including research on its outdated centrifuges that enrich uranium. But Iran wants to be free of restraints so it can introduce newer technology that enriches uranium more quickly.

The two sides are also at odds over the fate of Irans stockpiles of enriched uranium, which Iran has balked at sending outside the country. U.S. officials have said other options are being considered, so long as they maintain a one-year breakout period in which Iran would not be able to amass enough material to build a nuclear bomb. That would be up from an estimated two to three months of breakout time now.

As the negotiations have dragged on, the Obama administration had set down the marker of a March 31 deadline for a broad framework agreement that would guide three more months of negotiations on technical details. If an agreement is reached, many thorny and substantive issues are likely to be pushed into the technical phase. A comprehensive accord is by no means a certainty.

[Fact-checking Obamas reference to unprecedented nuclear inspections]

Its still unclear what form a preliminary agreement might take. Iran is opposed to what would be in effect two separate agreements. Its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has insisted on only one, the final accord, so the United States and its allies cannot make things difficult by challenging interpretations.

U.S. officials, who prefer a highly detailed agreement, have said they may come up with a general statement outlining the principles for continued negotiations, but provide more specifics in a separate document issued simultaneously. Whatever word is used to characterize any agreement, the fact that some key issues remain unresolved could make it more difficult for the administration to fend off congressional votes on more sanctions.

Even as the talks were going on, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kept up his criticism of an agreement with Iran.

The greatest threat to our security and to our future was and remains Irans effort to arm itself with nuclear weapons, he said. The agreement being negotiated, he said, paves the way to this outcome.

Netanyahu said the Iran would be left with its underground research labs, thousands of uranium-enriching centrifuges and a heavy water reactor that can be used to produce plutonium, another pathway to making a bomb.

Irans breakout time to have the tools to make a nuclear weapon wont be years, as was said in the beginning, he said. In our estimate, it will be reduced to perhaps a year, most likely much less than that.
This article was written byCarol Morello for The Washington Post on March 31, 2015. Carol Morello is the diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, covering the State Department.

https://theiranproject.com/vdcai0n6e49nmo1.tgk4.html
Your Name
Your Email Address