By Carol Morello and William Branigin
Negotiators from Iran and major world powers reached agreement Thursday on a framework for a final agreement to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions, participants in the marathon talks said.
They said the sides, including the United States and its key European allies, would promptly start drafting a final accord to be completed by a June 30 deadline.
“Big day,” tweeted Secretary of State John F. Kerry. He said the European Union, the six major world powers and Iran “now have parameters to resolve major issues on nuclear program. Back to work soon on a final deal.”
“Today we have taken a decisive step,” said Federica Mogherini, the foreign policy chief of the European Union. “We have reached solutions on key parameters of a joint comprehensive plan of action.”
In a statement read to reporters, Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said Iran would limit the operation of uranium-enrichment centrifuges to one site — Natanz — and would convert its controversial Fordow enrichment site into a center for nuclear physics and technology research. The Fordow site, which Iran secretly built deep inside a mountain near Qom, had raised alarm because it was less vulnerable to attack if used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
“There will not be any fissile material at Fordow,” Mogherini said in English. Zarif read the same statement in Farsi.
They also said that a heavy-water nuclear reactor at Arak would be rebuilt so that it could not be used to produce any weapons-grade plutonium. “There will be no reprocessing, and the spent fuel will be exported,” they said.
In return, nuclear-related sanctions against Iran will be terminated by the European Union and the United States, subject to verification that Iran is meeting terms of the agreement, the statement said.
The breakthrough came after an all-night session, followed by further talks a few hours later, in a last-ditch effort to get a preliminary agreement to constrain Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons in return for an easing of the sanctions that have severely crimped the Iranian economy.
“Found solutions. Ready to start drafting immediately,” tweeted Zarif. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani followed that up with a tweet from Tehran saying: “Solutions on key parameters of Iran #nuclear case reached. Drafting to start immediately, to finish by June 30th.”
“Good news,” said a tweet from Mogherini.
The German Foreign Ministry tweeted, “Agreement for framework for final agreement reached.”
The negotiators have been keeping the kind of hours usually reserved for college students cramming for exams, working double-overtime after pushing past their own self-imposed Tuesday midnight deadline.
Kerry and the top foreign envoys from Britain, Germany and the European Union were joined late Wednesday by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who had flown home to Paris earlier in the day but then returned unexpectedly.
Fabius is usually the one who takes the firmest stance on Iran’s nuclear program, frequently insisting that Iran must make many more concessions before an agreement can be reached.
But on his arrival, he sounded a slightly more optimistic note for the fate of this phase of talks, which aim to reach a preliminary agreement that will guide three more months of negotiations on complex and difficult issues revolving around nuclear technology.
“We are a few meters from the finishing line, but it’s always the last meters that are the most difficult,” he told reporters. “We will try and cross them. We want a robust and verifiable agreement, and there are still points where there needs to be progress, especially on the Iranian side.”
Iran’s chief negotiator, Zarif, sounding hoarse and sleep-deprived when he spoke briefly with reporters Thursday morning, said the negotiators would be doing an overview of the progress made so far. He said he expected that he and Mogherini would issue a joint statement afterward.
“There will be a statement to the press, which should be announced, but the text still has to be worked on,” he said.
At around 6 a.m. local time Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf tweeted that the talks had recessed after the marathon all-night session but would resume after only a a short break.
The day’s first meeting then began five hours later — shortly before 11 a.m. — involving the full contingent of diplomats from Iran, the United States and its five negotiating partners, plus the European Union.
The U.S. State Department said late Wednesday that enough progress had been made in meetings between Kerry and Zarif to warrant continuing the tricky talks into Thursday morning. But the short period appeared to reflect lasting difficulties between the negotiators.
Iran and the six world powers, which also include Russia and China, had cited progress in abandoning their March 31 deadline for the basic understanding that would prepare the ground for a new phase of negotiations on a substantive deal.
The talks appeared to be on ever-more-shaky ground as Wednesday elapsed. The White House said Iran had not made commitments about its nuclear program in the sessions Wednesday, and Iran’s foreign minister described negotiations with the West as “always problematic.”
Though the talks continued, Germany’s foreign minister said it was possible they could collapse.
“It is clear the negotiations are not going well,” two prominent Republican senators who have been wary of an agreement — John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) — said in a joint statement. “At every step, the Iranians appear intent on retaining the capacity to achieve a nuclear weapon.”
The Obama administration had sought a broad political framework for an agreement by Tuesday, with three additional months to negotiate the technical details. But a deadline that perhaps was intended to pressure Iran to make concessions came and went as the country’s representatives bargained hard. A temporary nuclear agreement with Iran remains in effect until June 30.
Diplomats and politicians sounded exasperated Wednesday, even as they acknowledged they were still exploring proposals to find a way out of their impasse.
In Washington, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the talks were productive but that there were unresolved details. He said the United States would not arbitrarily end the negotiations if they were making progress, “but if we are in a situation where we sense that the talks have stalled, then yes, the United States and the international community is prepared to walk away.”
In Lausanne, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said new proposals would be considered but that the two sides were still far apart.
When asked whether the talks could collapse, Steinmeier told German reporters: “Naturally. Whoever negotiates has to accept the risk of collapse. But I say that in light of the convergence [of views] that we have achieved here in Switzerland, in Lausanne, it would be irresponsible to ignore the possibility of reaching an agreement.”
Steinmeier said he would reassess on Thursday morning whether to stay or return home.
Zarif, Iran’s chief negotiator, was critical of his counterparts when he was approached by reporters as he strolled along the shores of Lake Geneva.
“I’ve always said that an agreement and pressure do not go together; they are mutually exclusive,” he said. “So our friends need to decide whether they want to be with Iran based on respect or whether they want to continue based on pressure. They have tested the other one. It is high time to test this.”
Earlier, speaking to Iranian reporters outside the Beau Rivage Palace, where talks are being conducted, Zarif sounded weary with the approach taken by the multiple negotiating teams on the other side of the table.
“The negotiations’ progress depends on political will,” he said, according to Iran’s Mehr News Agency. “The other party’s political will has always been problematic.”
With the departure of several foreign ministers who had arrived over the weekend, Kerry was joined at the table by the British and German foreign ministers and the European Union’s foreign policy chief. France, China and Russia were represented by their ministers’ deputies.
The Obama administration and its negotiating partners are seeking an agreement that will sharply limit Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons for at least a decade and maintain lesser restrictions in subsequent years. Iran says that its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian purposes. It is seeking the lifting of international sanctions that have battered its economy.
The day’s negotiations started amid hopes of a preliminary agreement on at least some issues.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he expected the talks to end late Wednesday with a statement “announcing progress.” That was quickly contradicted by diplomats from other countries.
Araghchi also offered some insight into Iran’s position on two central issues — the lifting of sanctions and the future of Iran’s research on centrifuges to enrich uranium.
“We insist on lifting of financial and oil and banking sanctions immediately,” he told Iranian state television, adding that the pace for lifting other sanctions was still being negotiated.
“We insist on keeping research and development with advanced centrifuges,” he added, referring to Iran’s desire to eventually replace its outdated centrifuges with more modern technology that enriches uranium more quickly. The United States and its negotiating partners want to keep restrictions on Iran’s nuclear research through the final years of a potential 15-year accord. They also want economic sanctions lifted more gradually.
The Obama administration had become increasingly adamant that it wanted a political agreement on the negotiations by the end of March. That marker was set when the negotiations were last extended in November. Kerry had said then that “at the end of four months, if we have not agreed on major elements at that point in time and there is no clear path forward, we can revisit how we then want to proceed.”
For months, the State Department avoided the word deadline, a term that was used in Congress and the press. Officials called it a goal. In recent weeks, though, even U.S. diplomats began using the term.
“We’ve said that March 31st is a deadline; it has to mean something, and the decisions don’t get easier after March 31st,” Harf said Monday.
Some say the White House should never have adopted the “D” word.
“It was a mistake to set the March 31 deadline in the first place, because we need a positive outcome more than anyone else,” said Gary Samore, a former nuclear arms adviser to President Obama. “Naturally, the Iranians are taking advantage and playing hard ball.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kept up his unrelenting criticism of an agreement with Iran.
“Yesterday, an Iranian general brazenly said, and I quote, Israel’s destruction is nonnegotiable. But evidently giving Iran’s murderous regime a clear path to a bomb is negotiable,” he said in a statement from Jerusalem.
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was visiting Israel on Wednesday with a congressional delegation, said in an appearance with Netanyahu: “Regardless of where in the Middle East we’ve been, the message has been the same: You can’t continue to turn your eye away from the threats that face all of us.”
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