Iran nuclear talks deadline extended
Iran and six world powers have ramped up negotiations after
accepting they would miss a June 30 deadline for a nuclear deal, with both
sides cautioning that major obstacles to a lasting agreement remained.
According to Al-Jazeera, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's
foreign minister, returned to Vienna with the country's nuclear chief, Ali
Akbar Salehi, for talks on Tuesday after consultations with the leadership in
Tehran.
"I am here to get a final deal, and I think we
can," said Zarif.
Zarif and Salehi held private discussions with John Kerry, United
States secretary of state, as they awaited for the arrival of the foreign ministers
of France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China.
Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from Vienna, said that
the Western diplomats view Salehi's presence as a good sign.
"When they did the interim deal in Lausanne, he was
very helpful to that process," said Bays.
Diplomats said the Vienna talks would run on for as long as
necessary to reach a deal intended to promise an end to sanctions in exchange
for at least a decade of limits on Iran's most sensitive nuclear activities.
"There are real and tough issues that remain which have
to be resolved in order to get the comprehensive agreement, and we still do not
know yet whether we will be able to get there," a senior US administration
official said on Tuesday.
For more than a week, the US, Britain, France, Germany,
Russia and China have been working into the night with Iran trying to break an
impasse in talks that they feel have never been closer to concluding
positively.
Diplomats have said the real deadline is not June 30 but
July 9, the latest that the deal can be presented to the US Congress if a
mandatory review period before US President Barack Obama can begin suspending
sanctions is to be limited to 30 days.
After that, the review will last 60 days, with growing risks
that the deal could unravel.
The main differences are on the pace and timing of sanctions
relief for Iran, and on the nature of monitoring mechanisms to ensure it
complies with the deal.
A big sticking point is Western demands that UN inspectors
have access to Iranian military sites and nuclear scientists.
Western diplomats say they are nearing a resolution,
although Iranian officials maintain that access to military sites is a red line
set by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The US official said the six powers had come up with a
system to ensure that the International Atomic Energy Agency would have the
necessary access, though there was no suggestion the Iranians had agreed to
this.
The West and its allies suspect Iran may be developing
technology that would allow it to build nuclear weapons under cover of a
civilian atomic energy programme, but Tehran says its ambitions are strictly
peaceful.
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