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Kerry, No Deal in Hand, Defends Negotiating Strategy on Iran Iran Balked at Language Of Draft Nuclear Deal, Western Diplomats Say
(about 7 hours later)
GENEVA — Secretary of State John Kerry defended his negotiating strategy with Iran on Sunday, asserting that the agreement he was seeking to freeze Tehran’s nuclear program would be in Israel’s interest. GENEVA — As Secretary of State John Kerry and foreign ministers from other world powers sought to hammer out an interim agreement to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, the Iranian government’s insistence on formal recognition of its “right” to enrich uranium emerged as a major obstacle, diplomats said Sunday.
“We are not blind, and I don’t think we are stupid,” Mr. Kerry said in an interview on the NBC News program “Meet the Press.” In long hours of closed-door discussions, Western and Iranian negotiators haggled over the language of a possible agreement. Toward the end of a marathon session, some diplomats believed that only a handful of words appeared to separate the two sides.
“I think we have a pretty strong sense of how to measure whether or not we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe,” he added, “and particularly of our allies like Israel and Gulf States and others in the region.” But the dispute over enrichment rights, among other differences, meant that the talks ended not with the breakthrough that many had hoped for, but with only a promise that lower-level negotiators would meet here in 10 days for more discussions.
Mr. Kerry cut short a trip to the Middle East last week to join foreign ministers from France, Britain, Germany and Russia to push for an accord that would constrain Iran’s nuclear program in return for possibly easing sanctions on the country. A senior Chinese diplomat also participated in the final discussions in Geneva. Many reports have ascribed the failure of the talks to France’s insistence that any agreement put tight restriction on a heavy-water plant that Iran is building, which can produce plutonium.
But the negotiations ended early Sunday without an agreement, and differences emerged between France and other Western nations over the best way to impose effective limitations on Iran. Lower-level diplomats are scheduled to meet again in 10 days to resume the effort. But while France took a harder line than its partners on some issues, a senior American official said it was the Iranian delegation that balked at completing an interim agreement, saying that it had to engage in additional consultations in Tehran before proceeding further.
There is concern among supporters of the Obama administration’s approach that the delay in securing an accord will give critics in Congress and Israel more time to mobilize opposition to any potential agreement. A senior American official who briefed Israeli reporters and experts in Jerusalem on Sunday said that the six world powers in the talks had approved a working document and presented it to the Iranians, according to Herb Keinon of The Jerusalem Post, who attended the briefing.
The initial agreement that the Obama administration is pursuing, which would last perhaps six months, would impose a number of measures intended to make it harder for Iran to develop the nuclear material rapidly for a nuclear weapon. “It was too tough for them,” Mr. Keinon quoted the American official as saying of the Iranians. “They have to go back home, talk to their government, and come back.”
By freezing the program in this way, American officials say, diplomats would have more time to pursue a more comprehensive agreement. In return, the United States would ease some sanctions and would most likely provide Iran with access to billions of dollars in funds frozen in overseas bank accounts. The failure to achieve a breakthrough in Geneva followed a week in which the Iranians had raised the expectations of a possible breakthrough, perhaps calculating that this would add to the pressure on Western nations to make concessions.
But the interim accord would not require Iran to stop producing low-enriched uranium or dismantle its nuclear infrastructure, which is the nub of the Israeli complaint. Both Mr. Kerry and his Iranian counterpart sought to put the best face on the deflating outcome.
In the television interview, which was taped after the talks ended early Sunday, Mr. Kerry sought to play down reports of differences among the United States and its negotiating partners. “We are all on the same wavelength, and that gives us the impetus to go forward when we meet again,” Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, told reporters after the talks ended.
“I’d say a number of nations — not just the French, but ourselves and others — wanted to make sure that we had the tough language necessary, the clarity in the language necessary, to be absolutely certain that we were doing the job and not granting more or doing something sloppily that could wind up with a mistake,” he said. Mr. Kerry had a similar message: “There’s no question in my mind that we are closer now, as we leave Geneva, than we were when we came, and that with good work and good faith over the course of the next weeks, we can in fact secure our goal.”
“This is a new overture,” Mr. Kerry added — referring to an initiative from President Hassan Rouhani of Iran to resolve the longstanding nuclear dispute — “and it has to be put to the test very, very carefully.” Still, the failure to conclude an accord gave an opening for critics in Congress, who have vowed to push for tougher sanctions, and in Israel and the conservative Arab Persian Gulf monarchies to mobilize opposition to an agreement.
The British foreign secretary, William Hague, asserted that Western representatives were united in the last hours of the meeting over the proposals left for Iran to consider during the break. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, a senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, accused the Obama administration of “dealing away our leverage” in an appearance on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”
Mr. Hague told the BBC that “narrow gaps” remained with Iran but that much had gone right in Geneva. “On the question of will it happen in the next few weeks, there is a good chance of that,” he added. “A deal is on the table, and it can be done. But it is a formidably difficult negotiation. I can’t say exactly when it will conclude.” Speaking to a large gathering of American Jewish leaders on Sunday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel warned that his country would not be the only target of an Iranian nuclear weapon. “Coming to a theater near you — you want that?” Mr. Netanyahu asked. “Well, do something about that!”
Israel, however, has been adamant that the terms of the deal being negotiated were uniformly good for Iran — and bad for everyone else. Defending his negotiating strategy, Mr. Kerry insisted Sunday that the agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program that he was seeking would be in Israel’s interest. “We are not blind, and I don’t think we are stupid,” Mr. Kerry said on “Meet the Press.”
Mr. Kerry met last week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who has described the interim agreement that the United States is seeking as a “grievous historic error.” “I think we have a pretty strong sense of how to measure whether or not we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe,” he added, “and particularly of our allies, like Israel and the Gulf states, and others in the region.”
Mr. Netanyahu has said that the United States and its negotiating partners should not remove economic sanctions until Iran agrees to abandon its program to enrich uranium and to dismantle its nuclear infrastructure, which Israel fears is not part of a peaceful energy program as Tehran insists but is a cover for developing the capability to make nuclear weapons. At the heart of the debate is the Obama administration’s two-part strategy, which calls for an interim agreement to temporarily freeze Iran’s nuclear efforts for six months so that diplomats have time to try to negotiate a more comprehensive accord.
“I’m not sure that the prime minister, who I have great respect for, knows exactly what the amount or the terms are going to be, because we haven’t arrived at them all yet,” Mr. Kerry said in response to Mr. Netanyahu’s critique. Iran has asserted repeatedly that it has the right to enrich uranium, a necessary step in producing nuclear fuel both for power plants and, at a much higher level, for weapons. The issue appears central to Tehran’s insistence that any talks on initial constraints, like the talks in Geneva, also acknowledge an “end state” for Iran’s nuclear program.
“And it is not a partial deal,” Mr. Kerry added. “It is a first step in an effort that will lock the program in where it is today — in fact, set it back — while one negotiates the full deal.” The Obama administration is prepared to allow Iran to enrich uranium to the low level of 3.5 percent as part of an interim agreement, as long as Iran agreed to other constraints on its nuclear activity.
“It seems to me that Israel is far safer if you make certain that Iran cannot continue the program,” Mr. Kerry added. “Now, every day that we don’t have it, they’re continuing it.” But the administration is not prepared to acknowledge at this point that Iran has a “right” to enrich, apparently calculating that any enrichment that Iran might be allowed under a comprehensive accord would be tied to its willingness to agree to strict monitoring and limits on its program.
Mr. Kerry defended the decision to ease some sanctions if Iran agreed to preliminary constraints, saying that the move would be needed to demonstrate American “good faith” and that it would not involve the removal of “core” banking or oil economic sanctions. “The United States does not believe there is an inherent right to enrichment, and we have said that repeatedly to Iran,” a senior administration official before the latest round of talks in Geneva.
“If, as their act of good faith, they freeze their program and allow us absolutely unprecedented access to inspection,” Mr. Kerry said, “it seems to me you’ve got to do something that indicates your good faith.” Marie Harf, the deputy State Department spokesman, declined to comment on developments in the talks on Sunday.

Jodi Rudoren contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Steven Erlanger from London.

Whether the differences with Iran over enrichment can be finessed somehow in the next round of talks is unclear. In an appearance before the Iranian Parliament on Sunday, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, insisted that Iran retained an explicit right to enrich uranium.
“National interests are our red line,” he said. “Among those rights are nuclear rights within the framework of international law, including the right to enrich uranium on Iranian soil.”
Wendy Sherman, the senior State Department official who heads the American delegation to the nuclear talks, flew to Israel on Sunday with a clear aim to influence Israeli public opinion, first with a session for Israeli diplomatic correspondents and then with a private dinner at the King David Hotel that included a prominent Israeli columnist, a leading Israeli television and radio anchor, and several researchers from the Institute for National Security Studies, which is affiliated with Tel Aviv University. She did not brief Jerusalem-based correspondents for American news organizations.
The British foreign secretary, William Hague, said that Western representatives were united in the last hours of the meeting with Iran over the proposals given to the Iranian delegation to consider. Mr. Hague told the BBC that “narrow gaps” remained with Iran, but that much had gone right in Geneva. “On the question of will it happen in the next few weeks, there is a good chance of that,” he said of an interim agreement. “A deal is on the table, and it can be done. But it is a formidably difficult negotiation. I can’t say exactly when it will conclude.”