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Iran Nuclear Talks Extended to Wednesday, Negotiators Say Iran Nuclear Talks Extended to Wednesday, Negotiators Say
(about 5 hours later)
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Negotiators from the United States, Iran and five other nations extended their deadline until Wednesday as they struggled to agree on a preliminary accord to limit Tehran’s nuclear program. LAUSANNE, Switzerland — The United States and its negotiating partners extended their deadline for reaching a preliminary accord with Iran on its nuclear program until Wednesday.
With a previously enunciated deadline just hours away, and after a full day of talks with most of the foreign ministers from the seven countries involved in the negotiations, an American official said that they were still working to resolve several issues. But that one-day extension came with a White House warning that the Obama administration was prepared to step back from its diplomatic efforts if it concluded that the initial accord could not be reached.
“We’ve made enough progress in the last days to merit staying until Wednesday,” said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. “There are several difficult issues remaining.” “I actually would say that if we’re not able to reach a political agreement in the timeline that we’ve described that we would walk away from the negotiating table,” said Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman.
Another Western official, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss closed-door talks, said that the negotiations on Tuesday had been difficult. The Obama administration has approached the talks as a two-phase process. The preliminary accord it is trying to negotiate as a first step is intended to lay the foundation for a more detailed accord that would be fleshed out by the end of June.
Plans to make some kind of announcement enumerating areas of agreement after a week of intensive talks were delayed. The nations involved in the talks with Iran are Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
Any accord that is reached will be, by design, an interim instrument that might be devoid of some specifics that the United States Congress, Israel, Arab states, and Iran’s military and hard-liners have been worried about. There have been signs that some of the most difficult issues will be deferred for a final agreement in three months.
The March 31 deadline was established three months ago as a mechanism to determine whether there was enough political will to reach a final accord by the end of June, when an interim agreement temporarily limiting Iran’s activities expires. But even getting that preliminary accord has been hard. The thorny issues have included disputes over what limits would be placed on the development of new types of centrifuges to enrich uranium and the pace for removing sanctions.
Just days ago, Iran seemed intransigent on several major issues. It wanted United Nations sanctions to be lifted almost immediately, while the United States and its negotiating partners wanted any relaxation to be gradual — to ensure that Iran takes steps that would make it far harder to produce bomb-grade material in less than a year, and as it answers long-evaded questions from international inspectors. And on Monday the State Department acknowledged that a key question — the disposition of Iran’s large stockpile of nuclear fuel — also remained a subject of debate.
On Monday, the State Department acknowledged that a central question, the disposition of Iran’s large stockpile of nuclear fuel, remained a subject of debate. “The bottom line is that we don’t have agreement with the Iranians on the stockpile issue,” said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman.
“The bottom line is that we don’t have agreement with the Iranians on the stockpile issue,” Ms. Harf told reporters. Western officials here suggested that the issue might be categorized a technical question and kicked down the road to the June final agreement. But the talks have also been burdened by clashing negotiating strategies.
“One person is missing here: It’s Ayatollah Khamenei,” a senior European diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said late on Monday, referring to the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “We don’t know what he will think of the provisions.” The Obama administration wants to nail down specific limits on Iran’s nuclear program as soon as possible so that it can better resist moves in Congress to impose additional sanctions.
Also missing is Congress, which has pledged to impose additional sanctions if a preliminary accord is not reached — a threat that may lead the Obama administration to solidify what it can get now and seek more in the next three months. It also wants any sanctions relief to be gradual in order to ensure that that it does not come before Iran meets its obligations under a nuclear accord.
The nations involved in the talks with Iran are Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov was the only chief diplomat from those countries who was not here on Tuesday morning, and it had been thought that he would return if an accord was likely to be announced. But the Iranians want most of their sanctions relief up front and have been resisted accepting stringent limits before they receive it.
Tuesday appeared to begin auspiciously when Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said in Moscow that there was a high chance of an accord and that he was flying to back to Switzerland, after leaving the day before, to rejoin the talks.
The odds for a deal “are probably not 100 percent, but you can never be 100 percent certain of anything,” Mr. Lavrov said. “The odds are quite ‘doable’ if none of the parties raise the stakes at the last minute.”
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, reinforced the sense of progress when he said Friday morning that the talks had been in something of a crisis but that negotiators seemed to have settled on “a bit of a new approach.”Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, reinforced the sense of progress when he said Friday morning that the talks had been in something of a crisis but that negotiators seemed to have settled on “a bit of a new approach.”
But if an accord is announced on Tuesday or Wednesday, it may be as noteworthy for what it leaves out as for what it includes. As the day dragged on, however, a European official said that the talks were difficult. By early evening, the Tuesday deadline had been extended. “We’ve made enough progress in the last days to merit staying until Wednesday,” Ms. Harf said. “There are several difficult issues still remaining.”
The issues the negotiators have been struggling to resolve include the pace at which United Nations sanctions would be lifted, restrictions on research and development related to new types of centrifuges, and the length of the agreement. American officials said that no ultimatums had been issued. But with lawmakers set to return in mid-April after a congressional recess, Mr. Earnest signaled that there was only so long that the White House was prepared to wait.
“If we are making progress toward the finish line, then we should keep going,” he said. “If we’re not able to reach a political agreement, then we’re not going to wait all the way until June 30th to walk away.”