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Iran Nuclear Talks Are Extended for Another Day Obama Tells Iran Nuclear Negotiators to Disregard Deadline in 11th Hour
(about 4 hours later)
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Iranian counterpart on Wednesday night for what diplomats said could be a series of pivotal sessions as the United States and its negotiating partners sought to secure a preliminary accord to limit Iran’s nuclear program. LAUSANNE, Switzerland — If American negotiators are ultimately able to conclude a “political understanding” with Iran on its nuclear program, as they said they were striving to do Thursday morning, the seeds might have been planted earlier in the week.
Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said before the meetings that the Iranians were expected to present “new recommendations” on how to bridge the gaps that have been holding up the accord. With only hours to go on Tuesday night before the expiration of the end-of-the-month deadline that had been set by the White House, Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz stepped into a large tent erected in a luxury hotel here and dialed into a video conference with President Obama.
As the talks appeared headed toward a potential moment of decision, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Steinmeier decided to extend their stay here another day. There was no way to meet the deadline, Mr. Kerry said, from the tent, which was designed to defeat eavesdropping. The Iranians, he said, perhaps sensing that the deadline meant a lot in Washington and little in Tehran, were intransigent.
In another sign that the talks were intensifying, Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, was flying here from Paris, Agence France-Presse reported. “They were turning our own deadline against us to see if we would give ground,” just to be able to claim that the March 31 date was met, one senior official said, who would not be named because of the secrecy surrounding the talks. Mr. Obama, according to two people familiar with the discussion, told Mr. Kerry and Mr. Moniz to ignore the deadline, make it clear he was ready to walk away and leave all sanctions on Iran in place and see if that would change the dynamic.
“Naturally, whoever negotiates has to accept the risk of collapse,” Mr. Steinmeier told reporters. “But I say that in light of the convergence that we have achieved here in Switzerland, in Lausanne, it would be irresponsible to ignore possibility of reaching an agreement.” It is still not clear if the 11th hour change in tactics will succeed in convincing the Iranians that the Obama administration does not want the accord more than they do, or yield a different result.
Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, confirmed that Mr. Kerry was staying on to give the diplomacy another try. But it was an example of the negotiating gamesmanship that has taken over the talks here. Mr. Kerry has kept his plane warmed up. Foreign ministers who came to sign an accord have returned home for other duties. France’s top diplomat, Laurent Fabius, tieless, came up in the elevator on Wednesday night musing to his aides that he had been there just a day before.
Mr. Kerry spent Wednesday night meeting again with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, for what diplomats said could be a series of pivotal sessions. At issue, officials said, were the pace at which sanctions would be lifted and restrictions on Iran’s ability to develop new, advanced centrifuges, which are upward of 20 times more powerful than its current models.
Heading toward the meetings, Mr. Zarif repeated an oft-used talking point, insisting that Iran was showing flexibility and that it was up to United States and its partners to reciprocate.
“Our friends need to decide whether they want to be with Iran based on respect or whether they want to continue based on pressure,” Mr. Zarif said. “They have tested the other one; it is high time to test this one.”
For weeks, critics complained that the March 31 deadline the Obama administration had set for a preliminary accord might backfire by adding to the pressure on American negotiators to make last-minute concessions.
The Obama administration has an eye to selling the agreement to a skeptical Congress. But winning the battle with Congress, the critics said, will depend more on what concrete agreements are reached here, and what issues are put off for further talks with the Iranians, than on whether a preliminary accord is settled on Wednesday or over the next week or two. And as French diplomats have repeatedly pointed out, the deadline for wrapping up a final, detailed accord is not until the end of June.
Mr. Obama’s Tuesday night decision to ignore the deadline he had set for himself was intended to persuade the Iranian leadership, watching these sessions from Tehran, to think twice about the hard-nose brinkmanship Iran negotiators had exhibited in previous rounds of talks.
Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said before the meetings Wednesday night that the Iranians were expected to present “new recommendations” on how to bridge the gaps that have been holding up the accord.
“Naturally, whoever negotiates has to accept the risk of collapse,” said Mr. Steinmeier, who made it clear he was staying for another day. “But I say that in light of the convergence that we have achieved here in Switzerland, in Lausanne, it would be irresponsible to ignore the possibility of reaching an agreement.”
Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, confirmed that Mr. Kerry had decided to stay on to give diplomacy another try.
“We continue to make progress but have not reached a political understanding,” she said. “Therefore, Secretary Kerry will remain in Lausanne until at least Thursday morning to continue the negotiations.”“We continue to make progress but have not reached a political understanding,” she said. “Therefore, Secretary Kerry will remain in Lausanne until at least Thursday morning to continue the negotiations.”
Mr. Kerry met one-on-one with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, on Wednesday, followed by larger sessions that included the two foreign ministers and a senior European Union diplomat, Helga Schmid. The talks have been snagged by disputes over what sort of research should be permitted on advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium and the pace of sanctions relief, especially those imposed by the United Nations, among other issues. Another issue in dispute has been whether a preliminary accord, should detail specific limits, as the United States has insisted, or be more general, as Iran has preferred.
The talks have been snagged by disputes over what sort of research should be permitted on advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium and the pace of sanctions relief, especially those imposed by the United Nations, among other issues. Another issue in dispute has been whether a preliminary accord should spell out specific limits, as the United States has insisted, or be more general, as Iran has preferred. As the sense of momentum built, news came that Philip Hammond, the British foreign secretary, was also returning here Thursday morning.
Heading toward the meetings, Mr. Zarif repeated a often used talking point, insisted that Iran was showing flexibility and that was up to United States and its partners to reciprocated. “We are a few meters from the finishing line, but it’s always the last meters that are the most difficult,” Mr. Fabius told reporters in his optimistic comments to date. “We will try and cross them.”
“Our friends need decide whether they want to be with Iran based on respect or whether they want to continue based on pressure,” Mr. Zarif said. “They have tested the other one; it is high time to test this one”
Before the talks were extended, the Obama administration had been struggling to meet what was essentially a self-imposed deadline for an initial accord that would outline the main elements of an agreement.
The administration’s calculation is that a preliminary accord would lay the foundation for a comprehensive agreement to be completed by the end of June.
It would also, the White House hopes, let the administration make a stronger case against American lawmakers who have been pressing for additional economic sanctions on Iran.
But lawmakers are not scheduled to return from their recess until mid-April. The Obama administration’s hopes of winning its battle with Congress will depend more on what concrete agreements are reached here, and what issues are put off for further talks with the Iranians, than on whether a preliminary accord is settled on Wednesday or over the next week or two.
Apart from the complexity of the nuclear issues, the talks have been complicated by clashing agendas for the United States and Iran.
The Obama administration, for example, has been eager to impose specific limits on Iran’s nuclear program as soon as possible to buttress its argument to Congress. It also wants any sanctions relief to be carried out in phases to help ensure that Iran meets its obligations.
Iran’s negotiators, however, have demanded that sanctions relief be provided up front, and they have resisted the formalization of stringent limits in a preliminary accord.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, said on Wednesday that he expected Iran and other negotiators to issue “a press statement” later in the day that would “announce progress in the negotiations.”
“It will announce that we have managed to find solutions for key issues,” he told Iranian television. “Then we will start to write down the solutions.”
Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, told reporters on Tuesday that a deal was virtually in hand and that a general understanding had been reached on “all key aspects.”
But Mr. Lavrov made similarly upbeat comments on Monday before the State Department announced that the talks had been extended and that “several difficult issues” remained.