Foreign Ministers to Join Iran Nuclear Talks

Local Editor

Foreign ministers from the six-power group negotiating a final nuclear agreement with Iran will step into talks in Vienna this week in an effort to break a stalemate and salvage a deal by a July 20 deadline.

The decision to bring ministers into the talks comes a week into what was supposed to be the final round of negotiations, with western diplomats saying progress has been painfully slow.

While no official plans have been announced, three diplomats said foreign ministers could arrive in Vienna as early as Friday. US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is currently in Asia, could come to Vienna over the weekend, two officials said.

As the pressure builds, signs of strains have emerged within the six-power group, with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Tuesday citing growing differences with Moscow over the talks.

The talks are led European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who chairs the six power-group and Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Deputy US Secretary of State William Burns was in Vienna earlier this week.
Other foreign ministers were always expected to join the talks to try to close a deal-just as they did last November ahead of a breakthrough interim nuclear deal.
"There is an agreement which has started to be negotiated...but almost all the text is in brackets," Fabius told French lawmakers on Tuesday.

He identified key differences that still had to be resolved, which included Iran's right to enrich uranium, how many enrichment centrifuges it would be permitted, the future of Iran's plutonium reactor at Arak and its nuclear site at Fordow.
"None of these questions have been resolved right now," Fabius said.

Ashton "is thinking about when to engage ministers as we move forward but no decisions have been made as yet," her spokesman Michael Mann, said Wednesday. "It would be an opportunity for them to take stock of where we are in the process."
One official said ministers were unlikely to stay en bloc through the next 11 days but would likely come and go.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team