Iranians arrive in Vienna to seal the deal; interim agreement extended 7 days
J.Post/30 June/15/VIENNA
Iran’s full delegation arrived in Vienna on Tuesday to complete a final, comprehensive agreement with world powers that will govern its nuclear program going forward. Tuesday was originally the self-imposed deadline for that deal, however the P5+1 group of world powers and Iran agreed to formally extend the terms of the interim agreement by seven days to buy time for a comprehensive deal. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was accompanied by Ali Akbar Salehi, the country’s chief technical expert at the talks, as well as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s brother and several of their aides.
Zarif told Iranian press that he had been in Tehran for consultations on Monday. But arriving at the Coburg Palace here in the Austrian capital, he rejected that he had traveled back to Iran for 24 hours to receive a mandate to close the deal from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “I didn’t go to get a mandate,” he said. “I already had a mandate to negotiate. And I’m here to get a final deal, and I think we can.”
During Zarif’s bilateral meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry— which lasted an hour— Khamenei sent out a message on Twitter blessing his negotiating team. “I recognize our negotiators as trustworthy, committed, brave and faithful,” he said, along with a photo of the team in white lab coats and the hashtag, “#IranTalks.”On Monday, a senior Obama administration official said that negotiations could go on for days, but that this was the final round— and that it might prove to be a rollercoaster. “There wasn’t paper out of Lausanne. You didn’t have a text.
You had parameters,” the official said, on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks. The official was referring to a framework for a nuclear deal agreed upon in Lausanne, Switzerland, back on April 2. Agreements in principle from Lausanne are now being put to paper, and the official said that, in doing so, the devil has proven to be in the details. “You are going to have a text,” the official added, noting the “staggeringly consequential” nature of the deal they are about to broker.
“It will be evident to everyone what has been agreed.” A rally was held on Tuesday in Tehran, attended by supporters of the supreme leader’s conditions for a nuclear deal. Those include a rejection of all access to its military sites sought by international inspectors, and immediate sanctions relief upon the signing of a deal. But US negotiators say there will be no “signing.” Instead, a deal will involve a phase of adoption, a phase of implementation, and then a phase when all provisions of the deal go live.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, as well as Germany Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also arrived in Vienna on Tuesday. They both plan on meeting with Kerry and Zarif.
Obama warns Iran in eleventh hour nuclear negotiations
J.Post/June 30/15/VIENNA
US President Barack Obama is warning Tehran not to walk away from agreements made in principle in Lausanne, Switzerland, back in April, as diplomats try to reach a common, final text of an historic nuclear deal based on those agreements. In Lausanne on April 2, world powers and Iran announced a series of political settlements they said would ultimately govern a comprehensive nuclear accord. Negotiators from those countries are now in Vienna to hammer out that final deal. But Obama, speaking from the East Room of the White House on Tuesday, said that “a lot of talk on the other side from the Iranian negotiators” in recent days suggested they were straying from the framework.
“The framework agreement that was established at Lausanne was one that, if implemented,” he said, “would in fact achieve my goal.” But if Iran cannot abide by the framework, the US president said, “that’s going to be a problem.” “I will walk away from the negotiations if, in fact, its a bad deal,” he said. “If the verification regime is inadequate, then we’re not going to get a deal.” Speaking to a small group of reporters in the Austrian capital on Monday, one senior administration official said— in English and in Farsi, through an aide— that the Lausanne framework could not be edited as negotiations entered their final stage. “There wasn’t paper out of Lausanne. You didn’t have a text.
You had parameters,” the official said, on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks. “You are going to have a text,” the official added, noting the “staggeringly consequential” nature of the deal they are about to broker. “It will be evident to everyone what has been agreed.”The United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany are negotiating with Iran to cap, restrict, monitor and partially roll back its nuclear program for a finite period, in exchange for sanctions relief. Obama made his remarks in a joint press conference in Washington with President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil.
“Ultimately, this is going to be up to the Iranians,” Obama said.
