Lausanne, Switzerland – Mar. 19, 2015 — Agreement on Iran’s uranium enrichment program could signal a breakthrough for a larger deal aimed at containing Iran’s nuclear activities, Associated Press reported.
The sides are racing to meet a March 31 deadline for a framework pact and a full agreement by the end of June — even as the U.S. Congress keeps up pressure on the administration to avoid any agreement leaving Iran with an avenue to become a nuclear power.
Right now, Iran would require only two to three months to amass enough material to make a bomb.
The pressure in Congress on the administration over Iran remained intense, with the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee saying he would move ahead with legislation giving lawmakers a say over any nuclear deal. And 360 House Republicans and Democrats — more than enough to override any presidential veto — sent a letter to Obama saying if an agreement is reached, Congress will decide on easing sanctions it has imposed.
“Congress must be convinced that its terms foreclose any pathway to a bomb, and only then will Congress be able to consider permanent sanctions relief,” the lawmakers wrote.
Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told administration officials at a hearing Thursday that Congress cannot be marginalized and “any attempts to sidestep Congress will be resisted on both sides of the aisle.”
The one-year breakout time has become a point the Obama administration is reluctant to cross in the set of highly technical talks, and that bare minimum would be maintained for 10 years as part of the draft deal. After that, the restrictions would be slowly eased. The total length of the deal would be at least 15 years, possibly 20.

Iran’s deeply buried underground enrichment plant remains a problem, officials said, with Washington demanding the facility be repurposed and Tehran insisting it be able to run hundreds of centrifuges there.
A planned heavy water reactor will be re-engineered to produce much less plutonium than originally envisioned, relieving concerns that it could be an alternative pathway to a bomb.
Any March framework agreement is unlikely to constrain Iran’s missile program, which the United States believes may ultimately be aimed at creating delivery systems for nuclear warheads. Diplomats say that as the talks move to a deadline, the Iranians continue to insist that missile curbs are not up for discussion.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met for the fourth straight day Thursday.
“We are pushing some tough issues,” Kerry said after a morning meeting. “But we made progress.”

Iran already can produce the equivalent of one weapon’s worth of enriched uranium with the centrifuges it now runs.