‘Progress’ in Iran nuclear talks

Progress has been made in talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, Russian and Iranian officials say.

Negotiations between six world powers and Iran will resume on Wednesday, overrunning a deadline for a deal.

Russia’s foreign minister said “all key aspects” had been agreed, but western officials said there were still outstanding disagreements.

World powers want to restrict Iran’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.

Earlier, the US state department said that “enough progress” had been made to merit working through a midnight deadline but that “several difficult issues” remained.

It is still unclear whether the most contentious issues have been resolved.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying that “one can say with relative certainty that we at the minister level have reached an agreement in principle on all key aspects of the final settlement of this issue”.

“It will be put down in writing over the next few hours, maybe during the day,” he told Russia’s Tass news agency.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that “quite a bit” had been accomplished.

“I hope that we can finalise the work on Wednesday,” he said.

The so-called P5+1 – the US, UK, France, China and Russia plus Germany – are seeking to ensure Iran could not assemble a nuclear weapon in less than a year.

The Iranians insist that they have no such ambition.

Negotiations at Lausanne’s Beau-Rivage Palace hotel continued into the early hours of Wednesday morning after a self-imposed deadline on a provisional agreement was extended.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius followed his Chinese counterpart in leaving Lausanne, but said he would return as soon as it was “useful”.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama held a video conference overnight with the US negotiating team. He was briefed on the progress of the talks by Secretary of State John Kerry but no details were released, reports the BBC.
Source: bbc.com