VIENNA (AP) — Iran nuclear talks busted through their second deadline
in a week Tuesday, casting new questions about the ability of world
powers to cut off all Iranian pathways to a bomb through diplomacy. But
the parties agreed to continue their talks.
"We knew it would have
been difficult, challenging, and sometimes hard," said Federica
Mogherini, the European Union's foreign policy chief. Negotiations, she
said, will continue for the next couple of days despite hitting some
"tense" moments.
As the latest target date arrived for a deal
setting a decade of restrictions on Iran's nuclear program, U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad
Zarif and other top diplomats huddled in Vienna in search of a
breakthrough. All had spoken of deep differences remaining even after 11
days of discussions, and there was no public indication they had
resolved disputes ranging from inspection rules on suspicious Iranian
sites to limits on Tehran's research and development of advanced nuclear
technology.
"The last, difficult, political issues, we have to solve," Mogherini said.
Diplomats
extended their discussions by a week when they missed their goal of a
pact by June 30, after passing previous deadlines in July 2014 and last
November. For Kerry and his team, pressure is increasing from skeptical
U.S. allies and members of Congress. If the accord isn't sent over to
American lawmakers by Thursday, their month-long review period would be
doubled to 60 days, hampering the ability of the Obama administration to
offer speedy economic benefits to Iran for nuclear concessions.
In
Tehran Tuesday, Iran's Atomic Energy Organization declared it had
reached a "general understanding" in parallel talks with the U.N.
nuclear agency on "joint cooperation." The Iranians have made similar
claims previously, and it was unclear if any process was established for
the International Atomic Energy Agency's long-stymied investigation of
past nuclear weapons work by the Islamic Republic — a demand of
Washington and its partners in negotiations in Austria's capital.
There,
in a baroque, 19th-century palace, Kerry gathered early Tuesday with
the foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia. The
larger group was to meet with Zarif at some point later in the day,
with the clock ticking. Russia's Sergey Lavrov and China's Wang Yi were
expected for a gathering of emerging economies in the Russian city of
Ufa on Wednesday, and White House spokesman Josh Earnest said another
prolongation of talks was "certainly possible."
The U.S. is in a
tough spot. President Barack Obama has expended significant political
capital on finalizing an agreement that has prompted suspicion from
Iran's regional rival, Saudi Arabia, outright hostility from America's
closest Mideast ally, Israel, and deep ambivalence even among Obama's
Democratic allies in Congress. They're concerned that the accord would
leave Iran's nuclear infrastructure largely intact and compel the West
to provide the leading U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism with
potentially hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of economic relief
from international sanctions.
To ease their concerns, Obama and
Kerry have vowed to hold out for a "good deal" that verifiably keeps
Iran at least a year away from a nuclear weapons capability for at least
a decade. Current intelligence estimates put the Iranians only two to
three months away from amassing enough material for a nuclear warhead,
if they pursued such a course. As part of the guarantee, the
administration has repeatedly threatened to abandon negotiations if they
prove fruitless or appear as an Iranian stall for time.
On-and-off
talks with Tehran have been going on for more than a decade, though
this incarnation has come closest to any resolution. The latest effort
began in secret a couple of years ago and gained speed after the
election of moderate-leaning Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in 2013.
By November that year, Iran and the six world powers clinched an interim
nuclear agreement and began the process for a comprehensive accord.
Over the weekend, a cautious Kerry told reporters that talks on the final package "could go either way."
"If
we don't have a deal, if there's absolute intransigence, if there's an
unwillingness to move on the things that are important, President Obama
has always said we'll be prepared to walk away," Kerry said. "It's not
what anybody wants. We want to get an agreement. But I've said from the
moment I became involved in this we want a good agreement, only a good
agreement, and we're not going to shave anywhere at the margins in order
just to get an agreement."
Republicans hostile to compromise with
Iran have been urging the U.S. to pull back from the talks. Their
refrain for several months has been that Obama and Kerry want a deal
more than the Iranians do, and have let red lines erode on Iranian
enrichment capacity, inspections and providing limited sanctions relief.
The president and his top advisers vehemently reject such claims.
Iran
has its own red lines, defiantly outlined in recent weeks by Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, the nation's supreme leader. They include a quick easing
of sanctions, and rejection of any inspections of military sites or
interviews with Iranian nuclear scientists.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/07/iran-nuclear-talks_n_7741954.html
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