Omens good for Iran nuclear deal at second bite

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/21/iran-nuclear-talks-geneva-progress

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Foreign ministers from six major powers are poised to fly to Geneva by the end of the week if nuclear talks with Iran lead to an agreement, western officials said on Wednesday night.

A new round of negotiations over the future of Iran's nuclear programme got under way on Wednesday, bringing together the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and top diplomats from the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China.

Officials involved in the talks – the third session since the election of a reformist Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani – said they were going well, overcoming the disappointment of the previous round, attended by US secretary of state, John Kerry, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, their French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, and other foreign ministers.

Those talks appeared to come close to clinching a historic deal but the talks broke up in early hours of 10 November, amid some acrimony over who was responsible for the failure.

This time, amid talk of progress, hotel rooms were being cleared for Friday in case the ministers returned to Geneva and advance security teams were making contingency preparations. Kerry's spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said he had yet to make a decision about attending.

"He's open to going if it would continue to help narrow the gaps. He has not made a decision at this point to go, but obviously, we're in close touch with the negotiating team and will make a decision, clearly, in the next 36 hours," Psaki said.

The negotiators still have to overcome the obstacles that stymied the previous Geneva session, but the differences appear to be narrowing. Zarif has signalled that Tehran might no longer insist on hammering out wording in the interim agreement that explicitly guarantees that Iran has the right to enrich uranium. Officials say there could instead be references to Iran's right to have a peaceful nuclear programme under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a statement that each side could interpret in its own way.

On the other major sticking point from the last round, the fate of Iran's heavy water reactor under construction in Arak, there is also discussion of possible compromise language which would not suspend all construction work but would halt the most sensitive element of that work, the manufacture of fuel rods.

However, a senior western diplomat said there was still some way to go. The negotiators are working on the draft text of a joint statement that would detail an interim deal which would slow down, and in some areas halt or roll back, the Iranian nuclear programme, while granting limited western sanctions relief. The stopgap deal, which would last six months, would buy time for deeper negotiations aimed at a more enduring settlement to the decade-long deadlock.

"Lots of progress was made last time. But considerable gaps remain and we have to narrow the gaps. Some issues really need to be clarified," the senior western diplomat said. "I sensed a real commitment … from both sides. Will it happen? We will see. But as always, the devil is in the details.

"There are very technical issues at stake; it is important to have clear understanding on technical elements in order to ensure a robust and viable agreement. This needs to be done in a proper way – we will take the time we need."

A senior US official said: "We have all agreed that the document that was on the table at the end of our session last time would be our basis on discussion to go forward here and I certainly expect that we will be talking about the text.

"Time is not unlimited, but we are making very good progress and people have arrived back here with a commitment to do the hard work necessary to try a reach a common agreement. This is tough. There's a lot at stake, and Iran is not the only country in the room."

The assessment of Zarif's deputy, Abbas Araqchi, was rather more downbeat, indicating that some trust had been lost at the last round when the Iranians thought they had been close to a deal but the western position, at France's prompting, toughened at the 11th hour.

"Because of the misunderstandings and problems that occurred at the previous round of talks, we haven't yet returned to the same position [that we had]," Araqchi said, according to the Mehr news agency. "Some issues need to be clarified and trust needs to be restored once again before we enter the phase of drafting or writing the document."

The cautious approach mirrored the tone set by Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who said he had set strict parameters for his country's negotiating team. "We do insist that we will not step back one iota from our rights," Khamenei told a rally of volunteer militiamen, the Basij. "We do not intervene in the details of these talks. There are certain red lines and limits. These have to be observed. They are instructed to abide by those limits."

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