VIENNA – Wall Street Journal – Nov. 19, 2014 —Washington, London and Paris have publicly presented a common stance on what they see as an acceptable final agreement with Iran over the future of the program. But current and former officials involved in the Iran diplomacy said questions linger over whether France might take a tougher line than the U.S. or whether the U.K. would veer from Washington’s views on a possible extension of the talks.
On Wednesday, U.K. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond publicly raised the prospect of extending the talks beyond the Nov. 24 deadline, just a day after meeting Mr. Kerry in London.
“I’m not optimistic that we can get everything done by Monday,” Mr. Hammond told reporters in London. “But I think if we make some significant movement we may be able to find a way of extending the deadline to allow us to get to the final deal.”
Senior U.S. officials have stressed that so far there have been no discussions with the Iranians about extending the talks, suggesting possible differences between the U.S. and U.K.
Mr. Kerry is meeting his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, on Thursday in Paris, as well as Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal. The meeting with Mr. Fabius will mark the second two-way meeting between the two men in Paris over the past two weeks.
Mr. Kerry is scheduled to arrive in Vienna later this week to join the talks, which include Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, a bloc known as the P5+1.
A second day of talks in Vienna took place Wednesday, but U.S. officials said little about the state of the diplomacy.
“The negotiating team is on the ground in a series of ongoing meetings and Secretary Kerry has been staying in close touch with them as well as his interagency colleagues back in Washington,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
Republican lawmakers on Wednesday made clear they’ll work seek to block any deal the White House signs with Iran that they don’t believe goes far enough in ensuring Tehran can’t develop nuclear weapons.
More than 40 senators signed a letter to President Barack Obama calling for a complete freeze of Iran’s ability to produce nuclear fuel and a broadening of talks to include a halt to Tehran’s ballistic missile program. U.S. officials say neither demand currently is on the table.
“We will continue to seek to impose additional pressure on Iran in the months ahead unless Tehran abandons its nuclear ambitions and pursues a genuinely constructive path in its relations with the world,” said a copy of the letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal. It was spearheaded by Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.)