MUSCAT - A hard-fought nuclear deal was at stake as Iran and the United States pushed Monday to overcome deep differences at talks in Oman, with warnings that a final agreement may prove elusive.
With a November 24 deadline hanging over the negotiations, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif were laying out their nations’ competing demands, but with no clear signs of a breakthrough.
In their first comments since talks started Sunday in the Gulf sultanate, the top diplomats gave nothing away moments before an evening meeting began.
Asked if they were making progress, as they appeared briefly for photographers, Mr Zarif replied: “We will eventually.” “We are working hard. We are working hard,” Kerry said.
US President Barack Obama said Sunday that a “big gap” remained on how the West can have “verifiable, lock-tight assurances” that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon. “We may not be able to get there,” Obama told CBS News.
The Iranian delegation is under pressure to deliver a total lifting of US, UN and European sanctions under a final deal, something they want immediately but which Obama said would only be “slowly reduced” if Tehran meets its obligations.
After more than five hours of talks on Sunday, Kerry and Zarif spoke for three hours starting on Monday morning.
After an afternoon break, their negotiations resumed just after 6:30 pm (1830 GMT). Only one day of talks had been originally scheduled.
The key sticking point is thought to be the number and type of uranium-enriching centrifuges Iran should be allowed to keep spinning in exchange for sanctions relief and rigorous inspections of its nuclear sites.
Iran denies it is seeking a bomb and says its nuclear programme aims to produce atomic energy to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels, requiring a massive increase in its ability to enrich uranium in coming years.
The duration of a final settlement plan between Iran and the P5+1 group — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany — also remains contested, with Iran speaking of five years and world powers suggesting at least double that.
Some analysts have said a deal may already be out of reach.
“A full-fledged agreement is no longer possible before the deadline. What is still achievable is a breakthrough that could justify adding more time to the clock,” Ali Vaez, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, told AFP on Monday.
“What is needed is a courageous political decision that neither side appears compelled to take until the 11th hour,” he said.
The talks have already been extended once — when a July 20 deadline was missed. Despite the logjam, neither side has indicated that it would walk away from the table.
The meetings in Muscat follow the revelation that Obama reportedly wrote to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to push for a deal, arguing that the Islamic republic and the West have shared regional interests.
This apparent reference to the fight against Islamic State group militants in Syria and Iraq was played down by Kerry, however, with the US diplomat saying “there is no linkage whatsoever” with the nuclear talks.
Domestic politics are also a factor, given the loss in midterm elections of the Senate by Obama’s Democrats to the Republican party, members of which have consistently bridled at the White House’s negotiations with Iran.
If talks go sour in the coming weeks it is thought the US Congress may respond with fresh sanctions on Iran.
Obama has the power to veto them, but the prospect of new penalties could push already protracted dealmaking towards being untenable for the Iranian government.
Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani are under fire from lawmakers sceptical of the interim deal, which came into force in January, who have also said that a bigger, final agreement must be ratified by parliament.
As if to drive that message home on Sunday, 200 Iranian MPs signed a statement demanding that Zarif’s negotiating team “vigorously defend” the country’s nuclear rights and ensure a “total lifting of sanctions”.