World powers' nuclear talks with Iran stall

VIENNA -- Joint efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and three other Western foreign ministers failed Sunday to advance faltering nuclear talks with Iran, with the target date for a deal only a week away.

"There has been no breakthrough today," said British Foreign Secretary William Hague after meetings with Kerry and the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Iran.

The trip also gave Kerry a chance to ease an espionage dispute with Germany. After meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, both stressed the importance of their cooperation in solving global crises, yet offered little indication they have fully mended ties.

Like the others, Kerry also met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

"We're working, we're working, we just got here," said Kerry, chiding reporters asking about progress as Sunday's meetings wound down.

Tehran says it needs to expand enrichment to make reactor fuel, but the U.S. fears Tehran could steer the activity toward manufacturing the core of nuclear missiles.

The U.S. wants deep enrichment cuts; Iran wants to greatly expand enrichment.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in describing Iran's long-range needs last week, talked of a 10-fold increase in enrichment capacity -- something so large that it would, if carried out, give Iran a "breakout time" of just weeks to produce weapons-grade fuel. He was vague about when Iran intended to create that industrial capacity. A senior U.S. official briefing reporters on Saturday said that Iran would have to accept sharp limits on its number of working centrifuges -- meaning fewer than the 10,000 it has today -- for a decade or more.

"There is a huge gap" over enrichment, said Hague, in comments echoed by the other foreign ministers.

Steinmeier and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius left Sunday, a few hours after they arrived.

Kerry and Hague stayed on for another day of diplomacy. Still, the dispute and other differences suggested that six world powers and Tehran will need to continue negotiations until next Sunday and could decide to extend their talks past that informal deadline.

Such an agreement would buy time to negotiate a pact limiting the scope of such programs in exchange for a full end to nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran.

"Obviously, we have some very significant gaps still, so we need to see if we can make some progress," Kerry told reporters before a meeting with European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton, who is convening the talks.

"It is vital to make certain that Iran is not going to develop nuclear weapons, that their program is peaceful. That's what we are here trying to achieve."

Fabius said "positions are still far apart," and the ministers had come to "try to narrow differences."

Steinmeier said he and other Western foreign ministers had made clear in meetings with Iranian officials that "the ball is in Iran's court."

"It is now time for Iran to decide whether they want cooperation with the world community or stay in isolation," he told reporters.

Lower-ranking officials represented Russia and China, possibly reflecting their view even before Sunday that talks past next Sunday are unavoidable.

But Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi suggested any extension would be relatively short, saying "there is not much willingness" by either side to go a full six months. He, too, earlier spoke of "huge and deep differences."

Kerry arrived in Vienna after a diplomatic bounce in Afghanistan, where he persuaded rival presidential candidates to agree to a full audit of their recent runoff election. They also agreed to a power-sharing arrangement.

But the nuclear dispute could prove harder to solve.

Iranian hard-liners oppose almost any concession by moderate President Hassan Rouhani's government.

Zarif has a parallel negotiation underway with Khamenei and the generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which runs the military side of the nuclear program and barely trusts its foreign minister.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has been in a behind-the-scenes struggle with members of Congress who argue for more sanctions and more pressure. Obama has threatened to veto such efforts for fear they will undermine chances for a deal he believes would be a more lasting solution than permanent sanctions or military action against Iran's nuclear sites.

"It may be the most complex negotiation I've ever seen," said a U.S. official who has been advising the White House on strategy, declining to speak on the record about the details of the discussion. "Everyone is using the constraints they face back home as a reason to avoid compromise. And the fact of the matter is that there are many generals in Iran and many members of Congress in Washington who would like to see this whole effort collapse."

A letter to Obama now being circulated in the Senate by Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, lays out a series of protections they say they will insist upon if Congress is to relax sanctions as part of any deal.

Among them are a robust inspections arrangement that "lasts at least 20 years" and "access to any and all facilities, persons or documentation" sought by the International Atomic Energy Agency to suspected past work on weapons.

Outside the negotiation, regional rivals of Iran, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, are skeptical of any arrangement they feel would allow the Islamic Republic to escape international pressure while moving closer to the nuclear club.

An interim deal in January effectively froze Iran's program, with world powers providing sanctions relief to Tehran of about $7 billion. The two sides also agreed to a six-month extension past next Sunday for negotiations to reach a comprehensive deal if necessary.

The Western group of ministers wasn't convening to negotiate an extension of the interim accord signed in Geneva, according to a U.S. official close to the talks.

Information for this article was contributed by Bradley Klapper, George Jahn and Margaret Childs of The Associated Press; by Jonathan Tiron, Sangwon Yoon, Ladane Nasseri and Kambiz Foroohar of Bloomberg News; and by David E. Sanger of The New York Times.

A Section on 07/14/2014

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