Iran and the US aim in talks that started yesterday in Switzerland to begin closing in on a deal reducing Tehran’s nuclear activities to within strict limits after 18 months of tortuous negotiations.
However, time is running short and tempers are fraying in Washington, where critics fear that the mooted accord will not do enough to prevent the Islamic Republic from getting nuclear weapons.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, due to meet his Iranian counterpart in Lausanne, Switzerland, later, sought to allay such concerns, saying the aim was “not just to get any deal, it is to get the right deal.”
Photo: Reuters
The target is for Iran and six world powers — the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — to agree to the outlines of a deal by March 31 and fine-tune the details by July 1.
Kerry on Saturday said that his “hope” is that the deal can be clinched “in the next days.” However, he cautioned that there remained “some important gaps” between the two sides.
“We believe very much that there’s not anything that’s going to change in April or May or June that suggests that at that time a decision you can’t make now will be made then,” Kerry told CBS television.
If Iran’s nuclear program is indeed “peaceful,” as Tehran says, “let’s get it done,” Kerry said.
The US and Iran have not had diplomatic relations for 35 years, and the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program has dogged its international relations for more than a decade.
However, the 2013 election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani resulted in a minor thaw and the past 18 months have seen an intense diplomatic effort to resolve the issue.
Under a landmark November 2013 interim deal, Tehran stopped expanding its activities in return for minor sanctions relief. Since then the parties have been pushing for a lasting accord.
However, to the alarm of Israel and US Republicans, Washington looks to have abandoned insisting that Iran dismantles all nuclear activities, tolerating instead a small program under tight controls.
In theory, this still leaves Iran with the possibility to get the bomb, critics say, and last week 47 Republicans took the unprecedented step of writing an open letter to Iran’s leaders.
They warned that any nuclear deal could be modified by US Congress or revoked “with the stroke of a pen” by whomever succeeds US President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
This followed a barnstorming address to US lawmakers — on a Republican invitation — by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning against a deal.
Obama said in a Vice media interview to be released today that he was “embarrassed” for the signatories, while Washington’s allies in its talks with Iran were also unimpressed.
“The negotiations are difficult enough, so we didn’t actually need further irritations,” German Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.
And Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif — due in Brussels today to meet his British, German and French counterparts — said it “told us that we cannot trust the United States.”
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