Reuters reported Thursday afternoon that Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Vienna this weekend along with foreign ministers from the P5+1 powers, who have been negotiating with Tehran over the latter’s nuclear program, amid concerns that a deal may not be reached by the time the interim Joint Plan of Action (JPA) expires on July 20.
The Wall Street Journal conveyed remarks indicating that progress at the talks was halting:
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.
The Jerusalem Post described the talks as being “in jeopardy” ahead of the JPA deadline and noted that Kerry is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, just the second time in nearly a year that the two will meet face-to-face.
State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf on Thursday told reporters that “significant gaps” still remain:
“The secretary will gauge the extent of Iran’s willingness to commit to credible and verifiable steps that would back up its public statements about the peaceful nature of its nuclear program,” State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Thursday night. “The secretary will see if progress can be made on the issues where significant gaps remain and assess Iran’s willingness to make a set of critical choices at the negotiating table.”
The administration statements will be read alongside observer concerns that Tehran has been reluctant to make concessions that negotiators consider to be key to a final agreement – in May, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed expectations of any compromise on his country’s ballistic missile program as “stupid” and “idiotic,” and as recently as Tuesday, Khamenei publicly claimed that Tehran hoped to have 190,000 centrifuges.
[Photo: DDNewsofficial / YouTube]