Friday, November 21, 2014

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John Kerry and Iranian Counterpart to Leave Nuclear Talks - New York Times




The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, left, and Secretary of State John Kerry, right, at the start of nuclear talks on Friday. Ronald Zak/Associated Press




VIENNA — Iran’s chief negotiator in the nuclear talks here is returning to Tehran on Friday afternoon to seek further instructions from his country’s leaders, as negotiators struggle to meet a Monday deadline for an accord.


Secretary of State John Kerry is also leaving, and will stay in Paris until his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, returns to Vienna, which is expected to be Saturday night or Sunday, according to Western diplomats involved in the negotiation.


The departures of the two men appeared to be a carefully coordinated move that would allow the Iranian negotiators to get fresh guidance, particularly on two sticking points in the talks.


One is how much capacity Iran would be allowed to retain for the enrichment of uranium, an issue that encompasses the size of its nuclear stockpile and the number of centrifuges that could remain installed.



The second centers on Iran’s demand that economic sanctions be quickly and permanently lifted, rather than suspended step by step over the next few years, based on Tehrans’s compliance with its commitments.



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Whether Iran is racing toward nuclear weapon capabilities is one of the most contentious foreign-policy issues challenging the West.




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“Secretary of State John Kerry will travel from Vienna, Austria, to Paris, France, this evening for consultations with his European counterparts about the ongoing Iranian nuclear negotiations,” Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement. “He will also stay in close touch with his interagency colleagues in Washington”


“His future travel schedule is still being finalized, and we have not yet determined when he will return to Vienna,” she added.


A Western diplomat, who asked not to be named because the official was discussing sensitive negotiations, said that the United States had anticipated for several days that Mr. Zarif would return to Tehran and that Mr. Zarif had discussed this in his meetings here with Mr. Kerry.


The language in Ms. Psaki’s statement would allow Mr. Kerry to determine whether Mr. Zarif had been given more latitude by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, before committing to return for what would presumably be the last stages of the negotiating round.


On Friday morning, Mr. Kerry held a three-way meeting with Mr. Zarif and Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s representative to the talks.


American officials did not disclose whether any headway had been made at that meeting, which followed a similar discussion Mr. Kerry had with the two officials last night.


After his meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Mr. Kerry consulted with Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, and Philip Hammond, the British foreign secretary, on the next steps in the talks.


The negotiations in Vienna involve senior diplomats from Iran, the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China.


The hope for American officials is that a successful negotiation will ease tensions with Tehran, discourage other nations in the region from pursuing nuclear arms and enhance the Obama administration’s legacy on foreign policy.


The negotiations are being watched with a wary eye by leaders in Israel and in Saudi Arabia and by many American lawmakers, all of whom fear that a new accord would allow Iran to maintain too much of its nuclear infrastructure and potential bomb-making capability.


Talks last year in Geneva to draft an interim agreement to freeze much of Iran’s nuclear program went down to the wire, and the two sides may be engaging in similar brinkmanship here in Vienna.


There were no indications that the two sides had succeeded in resolving their differences over how many centrifuges Iran would be allowed to have for the enrichment of uranium, how long an accord might last and how fast sanctions might be lifted, among other key issues.


During a trip to Latvia earlier this week, Mr. Hammond said he was not optimistic that a comprehensive agreement could be finalized by Monday, but he expressed the hope that there might yet be “some significant movement” that would warrant a second extension this year of the negotiating deadline.


At a news conference in Paris on Thursday, Mr. Kerry sought to justify the drawn-out nature of the negotiations.


“It was only last year when our nations first resumed high-level contact after decades of stalled relations,” he said. “Work also had to be done during that time with our European partners.”


American officials have been reluctant to talk publicly about extending the deadline because of concerns that such a move would ease the pressure on Iran to make hard decisions. But it has become increasingly unlikely that any accord announced on Monday would be a complete one.


“We are driving towards what we believe is the outline of an agreement that we think we can have,” Mr. Kerry said Thursday.









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