MUSCAT: The United States and Iran held high-level talks in Oman yesterday ahead of a looming deadline for a nuclear deal, but President Barack Obama warned that a “big gap” remained.
Iran, the US and European Union will hold an unscheduled second day of talks today on disagreements blocking resolution of a dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme, a US official and Iranian state media said.
Iran and world powers have set November 24 as a deadline to turn an interim agreement into a long-term settlement, but Obama warned it may not be possible.
“Are we going to be able to close this final gap so that (Iran) can re-enter the international community, sanctions can be slowly reduced and we have verifiable, lock-tight assurances that they can’t develop a nuclear weapon?” Obama told CBS News in an interview broadcast yesterday. “There’s still a big gap. We may not be able to get there.”
Despite the deadline, Iran and the P5+1 group — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany — are far apart on what capabilities Iran’s nuclear programme should have.
With two weeks to a deadline for a comprehensive accord, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU envoy Catherine Ashton met in Oman’s capital Muscat yesterday to address a decade-long confrontation that has raised the risk of a wider war in the Middle East.
Reiterating Iran’s official line, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted by Iranian media as saying the Islamic Republic would not abandon its nuclear “rights” but was committed to the negotiations under Khamenei’s leadership.
The discussions aim to put verifiable limits on Iran’s uranium enrichment work — and any other potential path to a nuclear weapon — in return for a gradual lifting of sanctions.
The negotiations at a luxury hotel appeared to be intense. The Iranian, US and European delegations met from 11:30am to 2:30pm local time, broke for lunch and consultations, and then resumed three-way talks just before 6pm (1400 GMT).
Both US and Iranian officials said the discussions would continue today. “Talks between Kerry, Zarif and Ashton ... will continue on Monday, to narrow the gaps and reach a comprehensive deal by the November 24 deadline,” the IRNA news agency reported.
Omani Foreign Minister Youssef bin Alawi gave reporters an upbeat assessment of the talks. “By the level of commitment all parties are showing, we feel comfortable,” he said. “There is no going back ... I feel that all parties are positively willing to reach an agreement.”
The thorniest unresolved issues are the size of Iran’s enrichment programme, the length of any long-term agreement and the pace at which international sanctions would be phased out, according to Western and Iranian diplomats involved in the negotiations.
Washington also wants intensive verification and monitoring measures to ensure Iran is living up to its end of the bargain.
Speaking to Iranian state television on his arrival in Muscat on Saturday night, Zarif reiterated that sanctions imposed on Iran had brought “no result” for the West. “If the West is interested in reaching such a solution, there is possibility to find a solution and to reach an understanding before November 24,” he said.
Quoted by Iranian student news agency ISNA in Tehran, Velayati said Iran “will not abandon our rights” over nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Arak as well over the size of its centrifuge programme that enriches uranium for nuclear fuel.
Centrifuges are machines that spin at supersonic speed to increase the ratio of the fissile isotope in uranium. Low-enriched uranium is used to fuel nuclear power plants, Iran’s stated goal, but can also provide material for bombs if refined much further, which the West fears may be Iran’s latent aim.
“We are committed to the talks and our negotiators are acting based on a framework ... outlined by the leader,” he was quoted as saying, reinforcing the widely accepted notion that Khamenei has the last word on important matters of state.
AFP./Reuters
