US Secretary of State John Kerry is heading to Geneva to join negotiations about Iran’s nuclear ambitions , the State Department said yesterday – raising expectations that a deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear programme could be near.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Mr Kerry would arrive early today, joining the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.
They will lend weight to negotiations aimed at beginning a rollback of Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for easing US and international sanctions.
Negotiators have been working since Wednesday to find language acceptable to Iran and its six negotiating partners – the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany.
As negotiations moved into the evening, a diplomat in the Swiss city of Geneva for the talks said some progress was being made on a key sticking point – Iran’s claim to a right to produce nuclear fuel.
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s top diplomat, have met repeatedly trying to resolve that and other differences.
The last round of talks between Iran and the six world powers ended on November 10 with no deal even after Mr Kerry, Mr Lavrov, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany and a Chinese deputy foreign minister flew in and attempted to bridge differences.
Mr Zarif and Baroness Ashton met briefly yesterday for talks that an Iranian news agency described as “complicated and tough.”
It quoted Iranian deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva as saying that Iran’s right to uranium enrichment must be part of any deal.
Iran says it is enriching only for reactor fuel, medical uses and research. But the technology can also produce nuclear warhead material.
Mr Zarif last weekend indicated that Iran is ready to sign a deal that does not expressly state Iran’s right to enrich, raising hopes that a deal could be sealed at the current Geneva round.
On Wednesday, however, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said his country would never compromise on “red lines”.
Since then Tehran has reverted to its original line – that the six powers must recognise this activity as Iran’s right under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty despite strong opposition by Israel and within the US Congress.