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WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State John F. Kerry said on Sunday that nuclear negotiations with Iran “can go either way,” although both sides had never been closer to concluding a deal.
After yet another session with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna, Secretary Kerry confirmed that the new deadline for concluding the deal was expiring on Tuesday and both sides were still trying to meet this deadline.
July 7 was set as the deadline when negotiators failed to meet an initial date of June 30.
“I want to be absolutely clear,” said Mr Kerry in a teleconference from Vienna. “We are not yet where we need to be on several of the most difficult issues.”
He said he “completely agreed” with the Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif that “we have never been closer,” but “at this point, this negotiation could go either way.”
Foreign ministers from five of the so-called P5+1 group started arriving in Vienna late Sunday for the talks that resume after a preparatory break. Secretary Kerry and the Iranian foreign minister are already there.
The P5 are the five permanent members of the United Nations, which include the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, while plus one is for Germany.
Earlier reports from Vienna had indicated that the deal was ready for them to discuss and endorse after more than 18 months of intense negotiations.
Under the deal, Iran will give up its plans for making nuclear weapons and in return the United States and its European allies will lift their crippling economic sanctions on Iran. Some of the restrictions were lifted in April this year when the P5+1 group and Iran signed a framework agreement.
Under this preliminary agreement, Iran agreed to reduce its installed centrifuges by two-thirds. Iran also agreed not to enrich uranium over 3.67 per cent for at least 15 years.
A final agreement will completely end Iran’s capability to make nuclear weapons.
But at his news conference, Secretary Kerry played down the expectations that the deal was ready to sign.
“I think there’s a lot of speculation, and I want to make sure that it’s based on some sense of reality,” he said.
Mr Kerry said now was the time to see whether or not the negotiators could close an agreement.
“Over the past few days, we have in fact made genuine progress. But I want to be absolutely clear with everybody: We are not yet where we need to be on several of the most difficult issues,” he said.
“If hard choices get made in the next couple of days and made quickly, we could get an agreement this week. But if they are not made, we will not.”
Mr Kerry said that in the coming days, negotiators work as hard as they could “and when the time is right, we will all have more to say.”
He said the two sides were still trying to finish the talks within the given timeframe. “That’s our goal and we’re going to put every bit of pressure possible on it to try to do so.”
Asked if he would walk away from the conference if he did not get the deal he desired, Secretary Kerry said: “If we don’t get a deal, 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.”
But he also said that this would not be the desired result as everybody wanted 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,” he said.
Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2015
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