In the negotiations, which started on Wednesday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton led the negotiating team of the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany), and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif led the Iranian negotiating team.
Several bilateral meetings were also held on the sidelines of the negotiations.
The latest round of talks between the two sides was held in Geneva from November 7 to 9.
The chief diplomats of all the members of the 5+1 group, except China, attended those talks.
They were about to agree on a last-minute draft deal on Iran’s nuclear program, but a disagreement on the demand that Iran halt construction of the Arak heavy water reactor caused the talks to hit a snag.
According to the New York Times, the proposal under consideration in those talks was to have been the first stage of a multipart agreement. It called for Iran to freeze certain aspects of 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 on Iran.
Iran’s main demand is that its right to uranium enrichment, as stipulated in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, be recognized.
But IRNA reported that a Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told one of its reporters that the 5+1 group has decided to recognize Iran’s right to uranium enrichment and this point would be included in the draft deal.
However, according to Reuters, Western diplomats close to the talks played down the possibility of an imminent breakthrough.
They said some progress had been made during the first two days and the number of disagreements was reduced. But Iran’s insistence that the six powers explicitly acknowledge its right to enrich uranium was a difficult issue to deal with.
Policymakers from the countries of the 5+1 group have said an interim accord on confidence-building steps could be within reach to defuse the decade-old stand-off.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov traveled to Geneva on Friday for the talks between the 5+1 group and Iran, Reuters reported.
Lavrov also planned to meet the UN special envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi. Russian and U.S. diplomats are to meet in Geneva on Monday to discuss preparations for an international peace conference on Syria, first proposed in May.
Western diplomats said there was still a chance U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would come to Geneva again to join the foreign ministers from the other five members of the 5+1 group in another attempt to finalize a deal.
But a senior European diplomat told reporters the ministers would only make the trip if there was a deal to sign.
“We have made progress, including core issues,” the diplomat said, adding that “there are four or five things still on the table” that need to be resolved.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, one of Iran’s senior nuclear negotiators, urged the six powers to be flexible.
“We’re currently working on a text, the majority of provisions of which there is common understanding on, and this points to progress,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA. “But we have some differences that we have still not resolved.”
“If the other side shows flexibility, we can reach an agreement,” he said. “If the (5+1 group) is not flexible in its excessive demands, the negotiations will not progress.”
Zarif and Ashton met again on Friday morning to explore ways to narrow differences on the outstanding points.
A senior Western diplomat said late on Thursday that it would “not be a tragedy” if the third round of Geneva negotiations adjourned without a deal and reconvened in a few weeks to try again.
Zarif wrote on his Facebook page on Friday, “The negotiations are going well, but we have disagreements on a few points.”
EP/HG
MNA
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