U.S., Iranian negotiators pledge to work hard on nuclear deal
Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met Saturday in Vienna, Austria, to seek a deal on Iran's nuclear program but were noncommittal about the prospects of success before a Tuesday deadline.
"I think it's fair to say that we're hopeful. We have a lot of hard work to do," Kerry said.
Zarif said: "I agree maybe not on the issues, but on the fact that we need to work really hard in order to be able to make progress and move forward."
An agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program, in exchange for lifting international sanctions, is being negotiated with Tehran by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China — plus Germany. Negotiators face a self-imposed Tuesday deadline.
Legislation passed by Congress gives it 30 days to review a deal reached by July 9. However, if the talks run longer, Congress would have a 60-day review period, providing opponents more time to reject an agreement.
France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who arrived in Vienna on Saturday, said Iran still needs to accept three conditions to ensure a "solid" agreement.
"What we want is a robust deal that recognizes Iran's right to civil nuclear power, but guarantees that Iran gives up definitively the nuclear weapon," Fabius said, according to Reuters.
"For this there are three indispensable conditions: a lasting limitation of Iran's research and development capacity, a rigorous inspection of sites, including military if needed, and the third condition is the automatic return of sanctions in case it violates its commitments."
Iran claims its nuclear program has peaceful purposes, but the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been investigating evidence of possible weapons work such as research that resembled warhead design, plans for nuclear blast tests and tests of detonating devices.
The U.S., France and other world powers want the IAEA to have access to all sites where nuclear work is suspected. Both of Iran's now-declared sites for producing nuclear fuel, which can be used to power reactors or bombs, were developed as secret military facilities before they were discovered by the international community and transferred to civilian authorities by Iran.
Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei last week repeated a stand expressed multiple times in past months by Iranian generals that military sites would be off limits to international inspectors who would be charged with ensuring Iran complies with the terms of the deal.