Iran Nuclear Talks Extended for Another Day

Hours before a deadline on a tentative agreement to scale back Iran’s nuclear program, the State Department announced Tuesday that stalled negotiations would extend into another day to allow Tehran and six world powers to flesh out their remaining differences.

“We’ve made enough progress in the last days to merit staying until Wednesday,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. “There are several difficult issues still remaining.”

U.S. officials have repeatedly refused to enumerate the specific points of disagreement between Iran and the so-called P5+1 countries — the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and China.

However, leaked reports from the talks have focused on four main points of contention. They include: how quickly U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran will be lifted in the event of a deal; how fast Iran will be permitted to develop its nuclear technology in the final years of an agreement; where Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium should be stored; and the type of penalty system for holding Iran accountable in the event that it violates the terms of the deal.

Earlier in the day, negotiators in Lausanne, Switzerland, said they hoped to produce a broad political statement by the Tuesday deadline that outlined the steps required to resolve concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

Clearly, enough gaps between the two sides remain that even a vague proclamation among the parties was beyond their reach.

Iran and the world powers had hoped to reach a political agreement on the nuclear talks by the end of March, but left themselves until June 30, 2015, to secure a final comprehensive deal. In recent days, it became increasingly clear among the nations involved that the soft March deadline was most important to American negotiators, who want to deliver an agreement before a skeptical U.S. Congress imposes new economic penalties on Tehran.

American lawmakers have repeatedly warned that they will take up new sanctions legislation on Iran if there is no tentative deal this week. In response to Tuesday’s extension, freshman Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) blasted the Obama administration for continuing the negotiations. “The best solution is walk away from the nuclear negotiations now and return to a position of strength,” he said in a statement.

Explaining the rationale for another day of talks, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said it “doesn’t make sense” to abruptly end the negotiations at this juncture if the United States continued to have “serious engagement” with the Iranians.

“If we are making progress toward the finish line, then we should keep going,” Earnest told reporters at the daily White House press briefing.

FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

BY JOHN HUDSON

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