Speaking from his balcony at the hotel on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters another extension in the talks with six other nations wasn’t contemplated.
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The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, returned from Moscow to rejoin the negotiations on Sunday evening, and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, was also expected.
Clinton promised at the time that the agreement was a “good deal” which would lead to the dismantling of Pyongyang’s nuclear infrastructure.
The goal of the deal being negotiated would be to increase the time it takes for Iran to produce enough enriched uranium fuel for a single weapon to at least one year from current estimates of two to three months – the “breakout” time.
A senior USA official declined to speculate as to the timing of any agreement or announcement and noted that “major issues remain to be resolved in these talks”.
In return Iran will be granted staggered relief from painful sanctions, although the six powers insist on the option of reimposing the restrictions if Tehran breaches the deal.
“There’s still work that needs to be done, but they’re going to continue working through the weekend”, said Mark Toner, deputy State Department spokesman.
European Union Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, who is also part of the talks, said Sunday morning negotiators were in the “decisive hours”.
JERUSALEM (AP) ” Israel’s leader says Western powers are “caving” into Iran even as the Islamic Republic keeps railing against them.
“I hope, I hope, that we are finally entering the final phase of this marathon negotiation”, Laurent Fabius told reporters after returning from an emergency cabinet meeting on the Greek crisis in Paris.
‘I believe it, ‘ he added.
“I think it is resolvable”, he said.
Despite the air of optimism in the Austrian capital, USA and Iranian officials dampened speculation that an agreement was imminent.
“Ninety-eight percent of the text is finished”, said a source close to the discussions, after a flurry of bilateral and multilateral meetings throughout Saturday.
Diplomats familiar with the talks said most of the nuts and bolts of implementing the deal have been agreed upon.
House Speaker John Boehner said Obama has backed away from guidelines set for the talks, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said “a very hard sell” will be needed for a deal worked out by the USA and five other countries to pass Congress.
“Based on Quranic tenets, the battle against the arrogance and hegemonic system could never be interrupted, and today, the US is the clearest embodiment of arrogance”, Ayatollah Khamenei said in a gathering of Iranian university students in Tehran on Saturday.
After a previous deadline to present a deal to the United States Congress by Friday was missed, the review period doubled to a potentially more problematic 60 days.
“What the Iran lobby doesn’t want you to know is that United Nations Security Council sanctions are directly tied to the dismantlement of Iran’s ballistic missile program-a key element being excused from the P5+1 agreement”.
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The nuclear standoff between Iran and the West goes back to at least 2002, when a group of Iranian exiles revealed undeclared Iranian nuclear facilities in Iran.
