(Washington) The United States estimated Thursday that a “possible agreement” on the Iranian nuclear power was “close”, but not yet acquired, because questions still get stuck while the days are numbered to obtain a breakthrough.
Posted at 8:23 p.m.
Negotiators meeting in Vienna to salvage a 2015 deal that was supposed to prevent Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb, which is now moribund, have made “significant progress”, said a spokeswoman for the American diplomacy, Jalina Porter, to reporters. Such advances have been reported by several emissaries in recent weeks.
“We are close to a possible agreement,” she added.
“But a number of difficult issues remain unresolved” and “we will not have an agreement if we do not quickly resolve these outstanding issues”, she warned. “If Iran shows seriousness”, an agreement is possible “in the next few days”, but “there is very little time left”.
European Union negotiator Enrique Mora, responsible for coordinating the talks which began eleven months ago, also said they were in the “final stages”. “Important issues are still unresolved, and success is never assured in such a complex negotiation,” he tweeted. “We’re definitely not there yet.”
The 2015 deal was struck by Iran on one side and Germany, China, the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Russia on the other.
Washington pulled out of it in 2018 by reinstating sanctions against Iran. In response, Tehran largely freed itself from the restrictions it had agreed to impose on its nuclear activities.
Iran has thus accumulated stocks of enriched uranium exceeding the authorized limit by 15 times, according to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) consulted on Thursday by AFP.
The coming days are seen by Westerners as decisive for the ongoing discussions in the Austrian capital, as they believe that at the rate at which the Islamic Republic is making nuclear advances, the agreement will soon be out of date. France considered it “urgent” to “conclude the negotiations this week”.
Several observers believe that the West could leave the negotiating table and decree their failure if a compromise is not reached by this weekend.
Among the stumbling blocks, Tehran is calling for the closure of the IAEA’s investigation into the presence of nuclear material in undeclared sites on its territory.
The agency’s director, Rafael Grossi, who said the IAEA would “never” abandon its efforts to get the Iranians to provide clarification in this regard, will travel to Iran on Saturday to meet with officials from the country.