Diplomats resume high-level push to reach accord on Iran’s nuke program

PanARMENIAN.Net - Diplomats resumed their high-level push on Thursday, July 9, to secure an accord to limit Iran’s nuclear program, just hours before the Obama administration had hoped to wrap up an agreement, the New York Times reports.

The talks followed a video conference on Wednesday night in which President Obama issued instructions to Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz about how to complete an agreement “that meets our requirements,” the White House said in a statement.

“We’re going to resolve the last issues, if we can,” Moniz said at the start of a meeting Thursday morning with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi.

“Hopefully, today is the last day,” Salehi added.

When Kerry arrived here nearly two weeks ago, the Obama administration hoped to reach an accord by Thursday so it could be presented to Congress for a 30-day review. If the agreement is reached later this summer, the review period will double, giving opponents of any deal more time to organize against it.

The top American priority, however, appears to be completing an accord during the current negotiating round in Vienna, whether it ends on Thursday or a couple of days later, to avoid risking a loss of diplomatic momentum, the NYT says.

A senior Obama administration official told reporters this week that the American negotiating team believed there were risks in interrupting the talks because the Iranian side might be under political pressure at home to back away from elements of a prospective agreement.

“It is pretty darn hard for the Iranians to go home and deal with the politics in Iran,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under the ground rules for the briefing. “Everyone understands that once we leave here, we are in less control of what happens in this negotiation. It gets more complicated, not less complicated.”

As Moniz and Salehi tried to resolve the final issues on Thursday morning, Federica Mogherini, the foreign policy chief for the European Union, convened a separate session with Kerry and senior diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, the five other world powers that are taking part in the negotiations with Iran.

The video conference with Obama on Wednesday recalled a similar one he conducted with the American team on March 31, which preceded a framework nuclear agreement two days later.

After receiving “guidance” Wednesday night from Obama, as the White House put it, Kerry appeared to be working on Thursday to coordinate the American position with his negotiating partners before he met in the morning with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister.

Kerry had dinner with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s top diplomat, on Wednesday night and met with Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, on Thursday morning. Kerry also spoke by phone Thursday morning with Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, who is at a diplomatic meeting in the Russian city of Ufa.

The foreign ministers from China and Russia are the only top diplomats among the six world powers negotiating with Iran who are not in Vienna, but they are expected to return to the city if an accord is reached.