AFP – 2 April 2015 – US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart huddled all night until early dawn Thursday negotiating face-to-face as they sought to clinch a hard-fought deal to curtail Iran’s nuclear program.
They were joined by the EU’s deputy foreign policy chief Helga Schmid for the marathon session, aiming to end a stalemate which has dragged the negotiations beyond a March 31 deadline.
“We are a few meters… from the finishing line, but we are well aware that the final meters are the hardest,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters, as he arrived back in Switzerland to rejoin the negotiations.
The stakes were very high, he said, adding at issue was the question of non-proliferation, and “Iran’s reintegration into the international community.”
Kerry and Zarif spent a sleepless night, talking from 9:20 pm (1920 GMT) Wednesday until 5:50 am (0350 GMT) with just a small break in between, when the American diplomat met with his French and German counterparts, a US official said.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and US Secretary of State John Kerry during a break in talks on April 1, 2015 in Lausanne
Diplomats and experts from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States also remained hard at work all night with their Iranian counterparts in a luxury Lausanne hotel in a flurry of separate meetings, before finally breaking from the negotiations just before dawn.
“We’re moving,” Zarif said as he emerged for a breath of fresh air.
After 18 months of intense negotiations, it remained unclear if the six world powers and Iran will pin down the main contours of a deal to put a nuclear bomb out of Iran’s reach.
The White House said the talks were still “productive” and progress was being made.
“But if we are in a situation where we sense that the talks have stalled then yes, the United States and the international community is prepared to walk away,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
He said there were two main sticking points — a mechanism for lifting crippling sanctions against the Islamic republic, and the country’s research and development of new nuclear machinery.
Global powers have refused an immediate end to all sanctions, preferring instead a phased suspension to enable them to be put back in place if Iran violates the deal.
US President Barack Obama also needs a deal which he can sell to hostile Republicans in Congress, who remain sceptical of Iran’s pledges and are threatening to push for new sanctions from April 14.
Republicans and US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia fear that if too much of Iran’s nuclear programme is left intact, it will still have the ability to obtain a nuclear bomb.
Graphic charting Iran’s socio-economic indicators
