Tehran rejected a key Western demand for site inspections Saturday and differences remained after US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart held talks to secure a nuclear deal.
With a deadline a month away, a senior Iranian negotiator said the Geneva talks between Kerry and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif failed to bridge the differences between Tehran and world powers.
"The differences are still there," Abbas Araghchi, deputy head of Iran's negotiating team, said at the end of the meeting.
Araghchi, quoted by state television's website, said the negotiations would "resume next week at the level of deputies and experts", rather than have the Kerry-Zarif talks go into a second day as expected.
The latest talks in the run-up to a June 30 deadline came amid heightened diplomatic moves to try to end a 12-year standoff and put a nuclear bomb beyond Iran's reach.
Kerry and Zarif huddled for six hours in a leading hotel with their delegations and top European Union official Helga Schmid.
"Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Zarif, along with their teams, had a thorough and comprehensive discussion of all of the issues today," a senior State Department official said.
"We are committed to working to close the remaining gaps and to staying on the schedule we've set forth to get this done," the official said.
But just before the Geneva talks got underway, Araghchi said it would be "out of the question" for UN inspectors to question Iranian scientists and inspect military site inspections as part of a final deal with world powers.
After an interim accord struck in Geneva in November 2013, Washington and Tehran are trying to nail the final details of a ground-breaking agreement that would see Iran curtail its nuclear ambitions in return for a lifting of crippling international sanctions.
After three decades of enmity, an accord would pave the way to bringing Iran back into the international fold and create fresh impetus to resolve a host of conflicts in the Middle East....
AFP
TV100F.COM
30/5/15
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Iran sanctions to ‘snap back’ if nuke deal breaks...
ReplyDeleteSix world powers have agreed on a way to restore U.N. sanctions on Iran if the country breaks the terms of a future nuclear deal, clearing a major obstacle to an accord ahead of a June 30 deadline, Western officials told Reuters.
The new understanding on a U.N. sanctions "snapback" among the six powers - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China - brings them closer to a possible deal with Iran, though other hurdles remain, including ensuring United Nations access to Iranian military sites.
The six powers and Iran struck an interim agreement on April 2 ahead of a possible final deal that would aim to block an Iranian path to a nuclear bomb in exchange for lifting sanctions. But the timing of sanctions relief, access and verification of compliance and a mechanism for restoring sanctions if Iran broke its commitments were among the most difficult topics left for further negotiations.
U.S. and European negotiators want any easing of U.N. sanctions to be automatically reversible if Tehran violates a deal. Russia and China traditionally reject such automatic measures as undermining their veto power as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.
As part of the new agreement on sanctions snapback, suspected breaches by Iran would be taken up by a dispute-resolution panel, likely including the six powers and Iran, which would assess the allegations and come up with a non-binding opinion, the officials said......alarabiya.net
31/5/15