Nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US) entered a critical stage and Iranian Foreign Mohammad Javad Zarif said the talks will continue through the weekend.
A third deadline (10 July) was missed by the negotiators, as Iran accused the Western powers of changing positions at the 11th hour in the nuclear talks and according to AFP, EU warned Iran to say today “yes or no” to the current nuclear deal. However, BBC reported that US Secretary of State John Kerry said America and other major powers were not in a rush to reach a nuclear deal with Iran. The officials from the oil-rich country, also expressed a similar position.
Iran is trying to persuade the negotiators, that its national nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes and it will not use it to produce nuclear weapons. If an agreement is reached the international community will then withdraw the economic sanctions imposed to Iran.
According to Iranian news agency PressTV, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the nuclear talks will most likely continue through the weekend. Zarif was asked by a PressTV journalist, if an agreement can be achieved today and he responded that he doubts it. “We’re making progress. It seems we are staying here for the weekend. We’re working,” he said and added that “we’re not there yet.”
The negotiators still have differences in two key areas. First, the international inspections of Iran’s non-nuclear sites which negotiators insist that they are needed to verify if Iran was trying to make a nuclear weapon in the past. The second difference is in regard with sanctions, as Iran wants the fastest possible abolishment of all economic sanctions.
A new obstacle presented is Iran’s demand for the UN arms embargo imposed to the country to be lifted. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at a summit of emerging economies in the Russian city of Ufa, said that Moscow is in “favour of lifting the embargo as soon as possible.” The US has already rejected the demand.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/nuclear-talks-at-critical-stage-talks-though-weekend/