It’s crunch time for the nuclear talks with Iran.
Tuesday is the deadline for a basic deal aimed at stopping Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb.
As the negotiations neared the endgame, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shied away from predicting success.
Difficult issues remain on the table as the world’s most powerful diplomats meet in Switzerland with Iranian nuclear negotiators, Kerry told CNN on Monday.
“We are working very hard to work those through. We are working late into the night and obviously into tomorrow. We are working with a view to get something done,” he said. “There is a little more light there today, but there are still some tricky issues. Everyone knows the meaning of tomorrow.”
If negotiators reach a basic deal Tuesday, a comprehensive deal, including technical additions, is supposed to be negotiated by the end of June.
World powers are seeking the outlines of an agreement they say would prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon for at least 15 years. In exchange, Iran would get out from punishing sanctions that have crippled its economy.
The crucial talks are taking place in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi sounded optimistic as he briefed reporters earlier Monday, saying that the diplomats were “narrowing down” their differences and working out ways to resolve sticking points.
“These marathon-like negotiations have reached the final stage,” he said.
Three tense points
Things have been tense in Lausanne as the deadline for an agreement nears, with talks snagged on three important points:
• How quickly or slowly Iran will be allowed to advance its nuclear technology in the last five years of the 15-year agreement.
• How quickly crushing U.N. sanctions will go away.
• Whether sanctions will snap back into place if Iran violates the deal.
Iran wants them gone for good. But international negotiators want merely to suspend them, so they can reapply them as leverage if Iran does not keep the bargain.
Agreement on the points is crucial, a Western diplomat said.
“There cannot be an agreement if we do not have answers to these questions,” the diplomat said.
Stockpile controversy
Confusion also flared over another important detail of the possible deal, with claims Iran was backpedaling.
On Sunday, an Iranian negotiator told journalists that Tehran would not send fissile material to Russia, which diplomats had earlier told journalists was part of the plan to put potential bomb-making materials out of reach.
“The export of stocks of enriched uranium is not in our program, and we do not intend to send them abroad. … There is no question of sending the stocks abroad,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.
But on Monday, U.S. officials said the rumblings in the media about the stockpile issue were overblown.
Negotiators had not yet decided any specifics about the disposal of fissile material, and Iran has made the comments many times before, a senior State Department official said, citing a list of previous examples of such statements in press reports.
“This notion that in the last 24 hours that somehow there’s been a shift in this issue, sort of a hardening of positions, just isn’t true,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said at a news briefing.
“This is a remaining issue that we have to resolve but hasn’t, quite honestly, been one of the toughest ones,” Harf said.