With nuclear talks approaching an informal March 31 deadline, Iran and the US have each called on the other to make concessions for an agreement.

Iran and the 5+1 Powers (US, Britain, Germany, France, China, and Russia) held a third day of negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland on Saturday. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry were joined during the day by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Zarif and Kerry, accompanied by their political and technical teams, resumed discussions on Sunday morning. The remaining Foreign Ministers — China’s Wang Yi, Britain’s Philip Hammond, and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov — are expected in Switzerland today.

The two sides appear to have agreed a procedure for a two- to three-page statement of General Principles by Tuesday, with detailed arrangements to be confirmed by July 1. However, they are still divided over issues such as Iran’s research-and-development centrifuges for uranium enrichment and the timing of the removal of US-led sanctions.

President Rouhani put out Iran’s message in a phone call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, “We have come close to sensitive days. Iran has shown the crucial flexibility during the talks, and now it is the opposite side’s turn to take the final steps.”

Rouhani repeated Tehran’s condition that sanctions must be lifted soon after completion of a deal, declaring, “We have always sought a win-win accord and this will serve the interests of all sides.”

In Lausanne, Zarif echoed the President, “I believe that France and Germany are serious about an agreement. We are ready to draft.”

However, US “senior officials” continued to insist that Iran must make concessions, notably over the research-and-development centrifuges. “The serious but difficult work continues,” one said on Saturday.

Iran has reportedly already conceded a 35% cut in its operational level of 40-year-old IR-1 centrifuges, to about 6,500. Tehran has also accepted that IR-2 centrifuges, installed in early 2013 but never put into operation, will remain off-line. However, the Iranians say that they must be able to continue the R&D of IR-2 and even more advanced IR-4 models — in expectation that they can operate by the end of the comprehensive agreement — at the Fordoo enrichment plant.

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, maintained optimism as she arrived in Lausanne on Saturday night:
As you know, we have never been so close to a deal.

We still have some critical points that need to be solved, and we are working over the hours, over the weekend to bridge the gaps.

I will not go into the details of the negotiations. It’s not the right time to do it. I hope we manage to do it in the coming days.

 

By EA WorldView