US Secretary of State John Kerry (second left), European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton (centre) and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (second right) prior to a meeting yesterday, on the third day of talks on Iran’s nuclear programme at Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, Switzerland.
GENEVA: France warned of serious stumbling blocks to a long-sought accord with Iran as unity among Western powers seemed to fray in talks on getting Tehran to curtail a nuclear programme seen as a bomb risk in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.
Iranian media quoted the Islamic Republic’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, as saying “the issues are serious and there is still a gap in stances”, and that the talks would probably end later in the day and be resumed at a later date. As discussions stretched on, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was doubtful whether they would soon succeed in nailing down an interim deal that would begin to defuse fears of a stealthy Iranian advance towards nuclear arms capability.
“As I speak to you, I cannot say there is any certainty that we can conclude,” Fabius said on France Inter radio, stressing that Paris could not accept a “sucker’s deal”.
His pointed remarks hinted at a rift brewing within the Western camp. A Western diplomat close to the negotiations said the French were trying to upstage the other powers.
“The Americans, the EU and the Iranians have been working intensively together for months on this proposal, and this is nothing more than an attempt by Fabius to insert himself into relevance late in the negotiations,” the diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
In a further indication that the atmosphere of cordiality that reigned in the first round of talks last month and first two days of discussions this week was dissipating, Araqchi complained to Mehr news agency that his counterparts from the six powers “need constant coordination and consultation in order to determine (their) stances.” The main sticking points appeared to include calls for a shutdown of an Iranian reactor that could eventually help produce weapons-grade nuclear fuel, the fate of Iran’s stockpile of higher-enriched uranium and the nature and sequencing of relief from economic sanctions sought by Tehran.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday there were “some very important issues on the table that are unresolved. It is important for those to be properly, thoroughly addressed”.
He avoided the media yesterday before engaging in another two hours of intensive talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. The three met for five hours on Friday night.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the talks have achieved “very good progress” but much more needed to be agreed and it was unclear if this would happen by the end of the day.
“We are very conscious of the fact that real momentum has built up in these negotiations,” he told reporters. “So we have to do everything we can to seize the moment.” Foreign ministers from all five permanent UN Security Council members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the US — and Germany were due to take part in yesterday’s talks with Zarif.
But it is only the Americans and Iranians, whose estranged countries have not had formal diplomatic ties for more than three decades, with the power to make or break an agreement on Iran’s contested nuclear ambitions.
The fact that any deal might be feasible after a decade of feuding rather than genuine negotiations between Iran and the West highlights a striking shift in the tone of Tehran’s foreign policy since the landslide election in June of moderate Hassan Rouhani as president. The powers remain concerned that Iran is continuing to amass enriched uranium not for future nuclear power stations, as Tehran says, but as potential fuel for nuclear warheads.
They are searching for a preliminary agreement that would restrain Iran’s nuclear programme and make it more transparent for UN anti-proliferation inspectors. In exchange, Tehran would obtain phased, initially limited, relief from punitive sanctions throttling the economy of the giant Opec state.
The goal now is to take a big first step towards resolving a protracted dispute rife with political baggage and legal complexities and to thereby arrest a drift towards a major new war in the world’s most volatile region.
“We’re working hard,” Kerry told reporters on Friday night.
Iran spelled out one major bone of contention. A member of its negotiating team, Majid Takt-Ravanchi, told Mehr news agency on Friday that Western powers should consider easing oil and banking sanctions during the first phase of any deal. The powers have offered Iran access to Iranian funds frozen abroad for many years but ruled out any broad dilution of the overall sanctions regime in the early going of an agreement.
Diplomats said that even a breakthrough this weekend would be only the start of a long confidence-building process towards a permanent resolution of concerns about Iran’s nuclear quest.
But they said the arrival of Kerry, Fabius, Hague, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — and the expected appearance of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi — signalled that the six powers could be closer to an elusive pact with Iran than ever before. Reuters
