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Kerry Says Difficult Issues Persist in Nuclear Talks With Iran Kerry Says Difficult Issues Persist in Nuclear Talks With Iran
(about 11 hours later)
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday said that negotiators were still grappling with difficult issues in the talks on limiting Iran’s nuclear program, but that they had made some headway. LAUSANNE, Switzerland — A dispute over what limits should be placed on the development of new types of centrifuges has emerged as a major obstacle as negotiators try to work out an initial accord on Iran’s nuclear program, Western officials said on Thursday.
“We are pushing some tough issues, but we made progress,” Mr. Kerry told reporters in Lausanne during a break in the talks. The negotiators’ goal has been to agree on the outlines of an accord by the end of March that would limit Iran’s nuclear program. A detailed and comprehensive agreement is to be completed by the end of June.
It was not yet clear, Mr. Kerry said, whether the United States team would return to Washington on Friday or remain here through the weekend to continue negotiating with the Iranians. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Thursday that while some progress had been made, the negotiators were still “pushing some tough issues.”
Iranian officials have spoken optimistically about the chances for sealing an accord in the coming days. The Iranian statements may be intended to build public pressure on the United States and its allies to make concessions, as well as to strike a positive tone for the Iranian public. A European negotiator, who asked not to be named while discussing closed talks, was more skeptical, stressing that an accord would not be possible unless the Iranians showed significantly more flexibility over the coming days.
But the United States and some of its European negotiating partners have spoken far more cautiously about the prospects for an accord in the near future. “We are not close to an agreement,” the official said. “We are not there at all.”
A Western official, who asked not to be named because he was discussing private deliberations, said that unless Iran demonstrated significantly more flexibility, it was unlikely that an accord could be reached this week. Western officials have suggested in recent weeks that the agreement six world powers are negotiating with Iran could allow it to retain and operate about 6,000 centrifuges.
Officials have suggested in recent weeks that under an accord, Iran would be allowed to retain about 6,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium. In return for being allowed to keep such a substantial nuclear infrastructure, Iran would be required to take some offsetting steps, like shipping a large portion of its stockpile of uranium to Russia. (The idea of making the centrifuges less efficient by removing some piping that connects them appears to have been dropped, some diplomats say.)
Among the key issues that have not been settled, Western officials said, are limits on research and development of new types of centrifuges that could enrich uranium far more efficiently than those the Iranians have now. Though Mr. Kerry declined to describe the major barriers, the issues that have not been settled include the pace at which sanctions on Iran would be removed or suspended, how many years an agreement would be in effect and what monitoring would be put into place when it expired.
Another difficult question is how quickly to lift the economic sanctions that have been imposed on Iran by the United Nations Security Council. France, for example, wants the agreement to last for 15 years and then be followed by 10 years of stringent monitoring measures, a Western official said.
The negotiators’ goal has been to achieve the outlines of an accord by the end of March, and then negotiate a detailed comprehensive agreement by the end of June. The question of what limits should be set on the research and development of new types of centrifuges is also a major sticking point.
Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz met Thursday morning with Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, to discuss an array of unresolved nuclear issues. That was followed by a three-way meeting among an American negotiating team led by Mr. Kerry; an Iranian delegation led by Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign minister; and Helga Schmid, a senior representative of the European Union. Iran, which insists its nuclear program is for civilian uses only, has complained that a prohibition on the development of advanced centrifuges would force it to make do with antiquated technology.
Yet the United States and some of its negotiating partners have been worried that allowing the Iranians to perfect more sophisticated centrifuges would make it far easier for Iran to make a dash for a nuclear bomb if it decided to break out of an agreement or tried to do so after the accord expired.
The ideas the Iranians have presented to bridge the gap between the two sides, some Western officials said, do not go nearly far enough. Iranian negotiators, an official said, had proposed that some advanced centrifuges it has produced be stored instead of dismantled or destroyed.
Iranian officials have also suggested that constraints on the research and development of some sophisticated centrifuges be removed after an initial phase. For example, if an accord is reached for 15 years, the restrictions might be eliminated after five years.
The dispute is especially significant because the Iranians had told the United States that the second generation centrifuges they have developed but are not operating are about three to five times more efficient than the first generation models they are using. Iran has also designed third generation models that are even more efficient.
The negotiating sessions on Thursday began when the United States energy secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, met alone Thursday morning with Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.
That was followed by two meetings that included Mr. Kerry, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister and Helga Schmid, the European Union’s political director.
Iranian officials have spoken optimistically in recent days about the chances of sealing an initial accord, in an apparent move to build public pressure on the United States and its allies to make concessions and possibly to play to their public at home.
But Iranian officials expressed little optimism on Thursday. Mr. Zarif and Mr. Salehi were photographed engaging in an animated conversation during a break in the talks.
Still, meeting the March-end deadline remains a high priority for the White House, which is trying to hold off congressional efforts to impose stricter sanctions, and for Iran, which is seeking relief from existing sanctions.
In heated testimony on Thursday about the negotiations at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr. Kerry’s deputy, Antony J. Blinken, told the committee that, “like it or not,” Iran now knows how to enrich uranium and “we can’t bomb that away, we can’t sanction that away and, unfortunately, we probably can’t negotiate that away.”
The only option, he said, is to limit Iran’s capabilities through an accord. Mr. Blinken also said that the inspections regime now being negotiated would be one of the most intrusive in history, seeming to suggest that it would go beyond the requirements of the “additional protocol,” an series of enhanced inspections standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Yet Mr. Blinken ran into sharp skepticism from the chairman of the committee, Representative Ed Royce, who objected to the administration’s assertion that even after the agreement expires Iran would be banned from building a weapon “in perpetuity.”
That statement is based on the assumption that Iran remains a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and does not exit the treaty as North Korea did a decade ago.
Mr. Royce, a California Republican, complained that Congress was being deliberately sidelined by the administration, even though it would eventually have to vote on whether to end American sanctions on Iran.
“Suggesting that Congress has a role to play by voting on sanctions relief years from now once a deal has run its course, that to me is disingenuous,” Mr. Royce said.