Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Secretary of State John Kerry arrived at a hotel in Geneva on Saturday to continue negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program.
GENEVA — As Secretary of State John Kerry and top diplomats from five other world powers swept into Geneva this weekend for the second time in two weeks, they struggled to complete a groundbreaking agreement with Iran that would temporarily freeze Tehran’s nuclear program and lay the foundation for a more comprehensive accord.
Even as the diplomats’ arrival raised expectations that a deal was in the offing, Western officials stressed Saturday that there was still important bargaining ahead and that the completion of the interim accord this weekend was by no means assured.
“We’re not here because things are necessarily finished,” William Hague, the British foreign secretary, told reporters. “We’re here because they’re difficult, and they remain difficult.”
A failure this weekend would not prevent negotiators from resuming their work later, but it could seriously damage whatever momentum they had. With lawmakers in Washington vowing to propose tougher sanctions next month if the Iranian program is not halted, and hard-liners in Tehran insisting that Iran never capitulate on its nuclear “rights,” the negotiators were effectively locked in a race against time.
Going in to Saturday’s talks, Iranian and Western officials said there were still differences over how extensive the constraints should be on a project Iran is pursuing to produce plutonium, which involves the construction of a heavy water reactor near the town of Arak.
Nor were the two sides aligned on the parameters of a much more ambitious follow-up agreement that is to be pursued if an initial accord can be agreed upon, though diplomats were reluctant to give details. “It’s not a done deal,” Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, said. “There’s a realistic chance but there’s a lot of work to do.”
Mr. Kerry, who arrived on an overnight flight from Washington, met with his French and Russian counterparts before joining a three-way session with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, and Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy chief for the European Union.
The wrangling behind closed doors recalled the round in Geneva two weeks earlier that seemed to be tantalizingly close to a breakthrough, only to sputter to an end as France pressed the world powers to toughen their demands, particularly regarding the Arak plant, and Iran balked at the new terms.
There were also other sticky issues, including Iran’s insistence that it had the right to enrich uranium. At the end of that round of negotiations, the world powers presented a unified proposal, and the Iranians said they needed to consult with the authorities in Tehran before proceeding.
There were few public signals from the negotiators on Saturday regarding the outstanding issues beyond that fact that major stumbling blocks remained.
“The fourth day of negotiations is hard and breathtaking,” Abbas Araqchi, a leading Iranian negotiator, posted on Twitter on Saturday. “The foreign ministers have arrived and I hope that they will be ready for taking hard decisions.”
The interim accord the United States and its negotiating partners are seeking would allow Iran to continue enriching uranium to 3.5 percent and would not require it to dismantle its existing centrifuges. But it seeks to constrain the Iranian program by requiring Iran to transform its stockpile of uranium that has been enriched to 20 percent, a short hop from weapons grade, to a form that is less usable for military purposes.
It also establishes a cap on Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 3.5 percent, precludes new centrifuges from being installed and is expected to involve more intensive monitoring of the Iranian program, among other measures.
As to what Iran considers its “right to enrich,” American officials signaled a possible workaround last week, saying that they were open to a compromise in which the two sides would essentially agree to disagree, while Tehran continued to enrich.
The accord would last six months, allowing negotiators that period of time to work on a more comprehensive and lasting agreement.
In return for the temporary freeze, Iran would receive between $ 6 billion and $ 7 billion worth of sanctions relief, American officials say, including providing Iran with access to frozen assets. The limited sanctions relief could be accomplished by executive action, allowing the Obama administration to make the deal without having to appeal to Congress, where there is strong criticism of any deal that does not dismantle Iran’s nuclear program.
The fact that the accord only pauses the Iranian program has been seized on by critics who assert that it would reward Iran for institutionalizing the status quo.
Talks With Iran on Nuclear Deal Hang in Balance
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