Marathon Iran nuclear talks entered the final stretch Monday with foreign ministers seeking to overcome the last few hurdles blocking a historic accord, even as an Iranian official warned they could fail to meet another deadline. On the 10th day of talks in Vienna, both sides warned success in their quest to nail down an agreement ending a 13-year-old stand-off over Iran's nuclear programme was far from guaranteed.
After failing to make a June 30 deadline, global powers have given themselves until Tuesday to try to reach an accord putting a nuclear bomb out of Iran's reach. On Sunday, US Secretary of State John Kerry, in the Austrian capital since June 27 facing off against his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, warned the talks still "could go either way". The point was rammed home by France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini as they returned to Vienna late Sunday.
"The main question is to know whether the Iranians will accept making clear commitments on what until now has not been clarified," Fabius said, adding that "all the cards" were "now on the table". On Monday, an Iranian official insisted his country had made "a number of concessions" but that a number of issues - few in number but "tough" - remained to be thrashed out at ministerial level. And he suggested the Iranian delegation had never really considered Tuesday as a deadline.
"July 7, July 8, we do not consider these dates as those dates we have to finish our job," the official, who asked not to be named, told reporters. "Even if we pass July 9, there will not be the end of the world, there will be another period for us to watch." After meeting without Iran Monday, the so-called P5+1 group of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, then met for the first time during this round of talks with the Iranian delegation.
There were also two rounds of bilateral talks between Kerry and Zarif, while the Iranian minister also met separately with some of his other counterparts. Kerry is under pressure to nail down the deal by Thursday in order that it can be sent to the US Congress for a 30-day review. The powers want Iran to sharply curb its nuclear programme to make any push to acquire the atomic bomb all but impossible, in return for sanctions relief.
Iran denies wanting nuclear weapons, saying its activities are purely for peaceful purposes. The deal, capping almost two years of rollercoaster talks following the 2013 election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, would build on a framework accord reached in April in Switzerland.
A final deal could also put Iran and the United States on the road to normalised relations - to the alarm of Iran's regional rivals - after 35 years of enmity and mistrust. Signs have emerged that some of the outstanding issues have been resolved by teams of experts, who are now waiting for the ministers to sign off on their months of behind-the-scenes work.
But the same tough issues that remain have bedevilled the talks since the start. These include investigating allegations that in the past Iran sought nuclear weapons, finding a mechanism to lift the sanctions, and ensuring Iran can continue to have a modest, peaceful nuclear programme. On Sunday, senior officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) flew to Tehran for talks, following on the heels of the UN watchdog's chief Yukiya Amano on Thursday. Amano said on his return that the agency could complete by the end of the year a stalled probe into allegations that before 2003, and possibly since, Iran had sought to develop nuclear arms.
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