Iran and major powers gave themselves until tomorrow to reach a nuclear agreement, their third extension in two weeks, as Tehran accused the West of throwing up new stumbling blocks to a deal.
Both sides said there has been progress in two weeks of talks, but British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond called it “painfully slow” as he and French Minister of Foreign Affairs left Vienna, saying they would return yesterday.
Iran and six powers — the UK, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US — are trying to end a more than 12-year dispute over Iran’s atomic program by negotiating limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
The sides remain divided over issues that include a UN arms embargo on Iran that Western powers want to keep in place, access for inspectors to military sites in Iran and answers from Tehran over past activity suspected of military aims.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif said a deal was unlikely to be reached on Friday and negotiators would probably spend the weekend in Vienna. He sought to blame the West for the impasse.
“Now, they have excessive demands,” he said of the major powers’ negotiating position.
Hammond said ministers were to regroup yesterday to see whether they could overcome the remaining hurdles.
“We are making progress; it is painfully slow,” he told reporters before leaving Vienna.
Zarif has been holding intense meetings for two weeks with US Secretary of State John Kerry to try to hammer out a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program in return for withdrawing economic sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.
An agreement would be the biggest step toward rapprochement between Iran and the West since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
However, the negotiations have become bogged down, with final deadlines extended three times in the past 10 days and diplomats speaking of a shouting match between Kerry and Zarif.
The White House on Friday said the US and its negotiating partners “have never been closer” to agreement with Iran, but that the US delegation would not wait indefinitely.
China’s Xinhua news agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying that the West and Tehran had almost agreed on the clarification of Iran’s alleged past nuclear weapon program and so-called “possible military dimensions” issues. adding that big progress was also made over capping Iran’s nuclear capability in the deal.
The negotiators on Friday missed a deadline set by the US Congress for an expedited 30-day review of the deal.
Any deal sent to Congress before Sept. 7 would now be subject to a 60-day review period, accounting for US legislators’ summer recess.
US officials had previously expressed concern that the extended review would provide more time for any deal to unravel, but have played down that risk in the last few days as it became increasingly likely that the deadline would not be met.
On Thursday, Kerry suggested that Washington’s patience was running out.
“We cannot wait forever,” he told reporters. “If the tough decisions do not get made, we are absolutely prepared to call an end to this.”
Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called Kerry’s remarks “part of America’s psychological warfare against Iran.”
A senior Iranian official speaking on condition of anonymity said the US and the other powers were shifting their positions and backtracking on an April 2 interim agreement that was meant to lay the ground for a final deal.
“Suddenly everyone has their own red lines. Britain has its red line, the US has its red line, France, Germany,” the official said.
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