Iranian nuclear deal could come in weeks: Hague

Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday that talks on Iran’s nuclear program could reach a deal within the next few weeks, despite the failure of negotiations in Geneva.

The inconclusive talks had “made a lot of progress”, brought all sides closer together and left an agreement within reach, Reuters quoted Hague as saying.

“On the question of will it happen in the next few weeks, there is a good chance of that,” Hague told the BBC. “We haven’t been wasting our time, but it is a formidably difficult negotiation. It is vital to keep the momentum… A deal is on the table and it can be done.”

Iran and six world powers failed in marathon talks that ended late on Saturday night to clinch a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Hague said he felt Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wanted to reach a settlement. “I do believe that he wants to solve this problem, that he is out to do a deal,” Hague told the BBC.

Any deal would inevitably involve compromises that would not be welcomed by all countries, he added.

Upon returning from Geneva, Abbas Araqchi, the Iranian deputy foreign minister and a lead negotiator, told reporters that the talks were “very good” and “we hope they will reach a result in the next rounds.”

He added, “We had very intense and difficult negotiations in Geneva which of course were very useful and constructive.”

Marathon talks between major powers and Iran failed on Sunday to produce a deal to resolve the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program, puncturing days of feverish anticipation and underscoring how hard it will be to forge a lasting solution, the New York Times reported.

Emerging from a last-ditch bargaining session that began on Saturday and stretched past midnight, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said they had failed to overcome differences. They insisted they had made progress, however, and pledged to return to the table in 10 days to try again, albeit at a lower level.

In a joint statement at the end of the talks, Mr. Zarif and Ms. Ashton said, “We have just come from a long meeting this evening with the E3+3 ministers, after three days of intense and constructive discussions. A lot of concrete progress has been achieved but some differences remain.

We want to thank the ministers who came and joined us and we want to thank our Swiss and UN hosts.

“Minister Zarif and I will reconvene together with the Iranian negotiating team and the E3+3 political directors here on the 20th of November.” Ms. Ashton appeared alongside Mr. Zarif at a news conference early on Sunday.

“I think it was natural that when we started dealing with the details, there would be differences,” Zarif said at the press conference.

In the end, though, it was not only divisions between Iran and the major powers that prevented a deal, but fissures within the negotiating group. France objected strenuously that the proposed deal would do too little to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment or to stop the development of a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium.

“The Geneva meeting allowed us to advance, but we were not able to conclude because there are still some questions to be addressed,” the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, told reporters after the talks ended.

Neither Ashton nor Zarif criticized France, saying that it had played a constructive role. But the disappointment was palpable, and the decision to hold the next meeting at the level of political director, not foreign minister, suggested that the two sides were less confident of their ability to bridge the gaps in the next round.

For all that, Zarif said that the atmosphere had been good, even if the parties disagreed on the details of a potential agreement. “What I was looking for was the political determination, willingness, and good faith in order to end this,” he said. “I think we’re all on the same wavelength, and that’s important.”

Iranian officials had promoted the possibility of a deal for days, generating an expectant atmosphere that swelled when Secretary of State John Kerry cut short a tour of the Middle East on Friday to join the talks. He was joined by the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, and Russia and a vice foreign minister from China.

“There’s no question in my mind that we are closer now, as we leave Geneva, than when we came,” Kerry said. “It takes time to build confidence between countries that have really been at odds with each other for a long time now.”

The proposal under consideration in Geneva was to have been the first stage of a multipart agreement. It called for Iran to freeze its nuclear program for up to six months to allow negotiations on a long-term agreement. In exchange, the West was to have provided some easing of the international sanctions that have harmed Iran’s economy.

After years of off-again, on-again talks, the deal would have been the first on Iran’s nuclear program. Despite the diplomats’ insistence on progress, the failure to clinch an agreement raised questions about the future of the nuclear talks, given the fierce criticism that the mere prospect of a deal whipped up in Israel and among Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.

The announcement was a deflating end to a long day of diplomatic twists and turns, after Mr. Kerry huddled for hours with Zarif and Fabius to try to close gaps on issues like curbing Iran’s enrichment program and what to do about the heavy-water reactor Iran is building near the city of Arak, which will produce plutonium.

Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the plant could be dealt with in a future phase of the talks because it would take a year for it to be completed and even longer for it to produce plutonium that could be extracted for a bomb.

But Kerry said during his recent visit to Israel that the United States was asking Iran, as part of an interim accord, to agree to a “complete freeze over where they are today,” implying that Iran’s plutonium production program would be affected in some way as well. And in a news conference at the end of the talks, Mr. Kerry made clear that limits on the Arak reactor should be part of an initial agreement.

Under a compromise favored by some American officials, Iran might agree to refrain from operating or fueling the facility during the six months the interim accord might last, while continuing construction of the installation.

Iran, which has always contended its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes only, insists that the heavy-water reactor is just another path toward the same goal of energy production.

French officials also noted a difference between the United States and Europe on the issue of sanctions relief. The most sweeping American sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking industries were passed by Congress, giving President Obama little flexibility to lift them.

That has led the Obama administration to focus on a narrower set of proposals involving Iranian cash that is frozen in overseas banks. Freeing that cash in installments, in return for specific steps by Iran, would not require the repeal of any congressional sanctions.

France and other European Union countries, however, face fewer political restrictions on ending their core sanctions, which means any decision to lift them could be more far-reaching.

“There are very strong feelings about the consequences of our choices for our allies,” Kerry said. “We have enormous respect for those concerns.”