Nuke deal deadline passes but talks continue

Iran nuclear talks passed their second deadline in a week yesterday, casting new questions about the ability of world powers to cut off all Iranian pathways to a bomb through diplomacy. But the parties agreed to continue their talks.

“We knew it would have been difficult, challenging, and sometimes hard,” said Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief. Negotiations, she said, will continue for the next couple of days, despite some tensions.

As the latest target date arrived for a deal setting a decade of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme, US Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and other top diplomats huddled in Vienna in search of a breakthrough. All had spoken of deep differences remaining even after 11 days of discussions, and there was no public indication they had resolved disputes ranging from inspection rules on suspicious Iranian sites to limits on Tehran’s research and development of advanced nuclear technology.

“The last, difficult, political issues, we have to solve,” Mogherini said.

Diplomats extended their discussions by a week when they missed their goal of a pact by June 30, after passing previous deadlines in July 2014 and last November.

In Tehran yesterday, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation declared it had reached a “general understanding” in parallel talks with the UN nuclear agency on “joint co-operation”. The Iranians have made similar claims previously, and it was unclear if any process was established for the International Atomic Energy Agency’s long-stymied investigation of past nuclear weapons work by the Islamic Republic — a demand of Washington and its partners in negotiations in Vienna.

There, in a 19th-century palace, Kerry gathered early yesterday with the foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia. The larger group was to meet with Zarif at some point later in the day, with the clock ticking. Russia’s Sergey Lavrov and China’s Wang Yi were expected for a gathering of emerging economies in the Russian city of Ufa today, and White House spokesman Josh Earnest said extending talks again was “certainly possible”.

Iran’s red line issues include a quick easing of sanctions, and rejection of any inspections of military sites or interviews with Iranian nuclear scientists.