Iranian nuclear talks extended beyond deadline
Negotiations between Iran and the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China have gone past Tuesday’s deadline.
No official confirmation was forthcoming, as speculation arose about the talks being postponed until after the Easter Sunday weekend.
The biggest sticking point remains the downsizing and ultimate removal of international sanctions on Iran should the Islamic republic agree to comply with an international monitoring of its contested nuclear programme, which it claims is only for peaceful purposes.
Iran is calling for the immediate and permanent lifting of sanctions, especially those imposed by the US and EU, which restrict it from accessing the international oil markets. However, the group of five + 1 as it’s known, wants to have the power to be able to re-impose sanctions if Iran does not comply with mutually agreed positions within a finite time scale.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif expressed his commitment to start writing out the preliminary agreement. “We've had very good talks with the other parties. We hope to start writing out the deal by Wednesday”, he added.
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov said the group had reached an agreement on "all the key points", as reported by the Russian news agency Itar-Tass. He also raised the possibility that the agreement could be reached in a matter of hours rather than until after Easter.