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Negotiators Plan to Extend Iran Nuclear Talks by 7 Months U.S. and Allies Extend Iran Nuclear Talks by 7 Months
(about 2 hours later)
VIENNA — Hours away from a Monday deadline for completing a new accord to curb Iran’s nuclear program, negotiators planned to extend talks for another seven months, a Western diplomat said. VIENNA — A yearlong effort to reach an enduring accord with Iran to dismantle large parts of its nuclear infrastructure fell short on Monday, forcing the United States and its allies to declare a seven-month extension, but with no clear indication of how they plan to bridge fundamental differences.
The British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, told reporters that “some significant progress” had been made but did not provide details. He confirmed that the goal was to reach a “headline” agreement by March 1 and that the talks would continue through June. In a news conference hours before a deadline on Monday night, Secretary of State John Kerry said a series of “new ideas surfaced” in the last several days of talks. He added that “we would be fools to walk away,” because a temporary agreement curbing Iran’s program would remain in place while negotiations continued. In return, Iran will receive another $5 billion in sanctions relief, enabling it to recover money frozen abroad — something that is likely to add to the threat of new sanctions from the newly-elected Republican Congress.
The negotiations are to resume next month. The location for the December talks has yet to be announced, but over the past month, Secretary of State John Kerry has met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Muscat, Oman, and in Vienna. But the fundamental problem remained: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has yet to signal that he is prepared to make the kind of far-reaching cuts in Iran’s enrichment capability that would be required to seal an accord. And it is unclear that his view will change before a March 1 deadline for reaching a political agreement, the first phase in the seven-month extension.
American officials and their negotiating partners have yet to explain what progress might have been made and what gaps remain. President Obama said in a television interview on Sunday that there were still “significant” differences between the two sides. “Is it possible in the end we won’t reach an agreement?” Mr. Kerry said. “Absolutely.” But he also indicated that the United States and Iran, along with Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia would turn only then to the question of whether a diplomatic path that President Obama has so long insisted upon can succeed.
Negotiators are trying to resolve crucial issues, including how much nuclear fuel Iran could produce, how long the accord would last and how intrusive inspections would be. “These talks are not going to get easier just because we extend them,” Mr. Kerry acknowledged. “They are tough, they’ve been tough, and they are going to stay tough.”
“Given progress made this weekend, talks headed to likely extension with experts and negotiating teams reconvening in December at a yet-to-be-determined location,” said a Western diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions related to internal planning, before the extension was announced. Officials said little about the new approaches they were now exploring with Iran, other than to indicate that “experts” — presumably at the Energy Department’s national laboratories — would be studying them to see if they, in combination with other steps, would result in at least a year’s warning if Iran raced for a weapon. That is the standard that the United States has set.
Mr. Hammond signaled last week that an extension was a likely option. But Mr. Kerry has insisted as recently as Thursday that the goal of the current round was to hammer out “the outline” of an agreement and that an extension was not under discussion. That suggested the approach involves a combination of Iranian commitments to ship some of its nuclear stockpile to Russia, efforts to disconnect some of the country’s centrifuges in ways that would take considerable time to reverse, and limits on output that could be verified by international inspectors. “It’s a lot of moving parts,” said one European diplomat involved in the discussions, “and the question is what it adds up to.”
With the deadline just a day away, however, Mr. Kerry raised the idea of extending the talks in a meeting on Sunday night with Mr. Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister. The Iranian news media had already reported that the Iranian side would be amenable to some sort of extension. Mr. Kerry went out of his way to compliment the lead Iranian negotiator, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who American officials have described as a creative diplomat who is forced to navigate Iran’s treacherous politics — and uncertain how far the country’s supreme leader will let him go. He and Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, came to power promising an end to the sanctions that have reduced Iran’s oil revenue by roughly 60 percent, crashed its currency and made overseas financial transactions almost impossible.
The extension had not even been announced when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel celebrated it as the least-bad outcome. But Mr. Zarif was also arguing, to the end here, that the sanctions must be lifted permanently and almost immediately, rather than being suspended, step by step, as President Obama has insisted. When Mr. Obama publicly rejected that approach in an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” it seemed to drive home the fact that an accord was simply impossible.
For many opponents of the deal — in Iran, in Congress, in Israel and in the Arab states — the result was a relief. The extension had not even been announced when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel celebrated it as the least-bad outcome.
“No deal is better than a bad deal,” he said to the BBC, hours after speaking with Mr. Kerry by phone. “The right deal that is needed is to dismantle Iran’s capacity to make atomic bombs and only then dismantle the sanctions. Since that’s not in the offing, this result is better, a lot better.”“No deal is better than a bad deal,” he said to the BBC, hours after speaking with Mr. Kerry by phone. “The right deal that is needed is to dismantle Iran’s capacity to make atomic bombs and only then dismantle the sanctions. Since that’s not in the offing, this result is better, a lot better.”
In Iran, the calculus is more complex. With oil prices dropping, the economic damage done by the sanctions is being amplified. But those supporting President Rouhani insisted that the extension did not mean failure, and some argued that extra time works in Iran’s favor.
Saeed Laylaz, an economist connected to the government, argued that Mr. Rouhani was managing the country more efficiently than his fiery predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“With prudence and wisdom we can run the country, and at least we are now assured of $700 million income each month, which we can inject into the economy,” Mr. Laylaz said. That is the amount Iran will receive in the additional sanctions relief.
Those who have been critical of the government’s outreach to what they see as its archenemy, the United States, also welcomed the outcome, saying it showed that the negotiators had been under the control of the supreme leader, and that Iran had lost nothing — because its nuclear infrastructure remained intact.
The negotiations are to resume next month. The location for the December talks has yet to be announced, but since the long dance to today’s failed deadline began they have been held in Muscat, Oman; Geneva and here in Vienna.