White House predicts Iran talks going ‘down to the wire,’ as effort hits bumps

Posted 2015-03-30 16:27 by Grunt Report with 0 comments

The White House predicted Monday that talks with Iran will “go down to the wire,” as Tehran reportedly makes new demands on the eve of a vital deadline for reaching a nuclear deal framework.

With the March 31 target fast approaching, top diplomats from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Germany and Iran were meeting to try to bridge remaining gaps and hammer out the framework deal that would be the basis for a final accord to be reached by the end of June.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz, briefing reporters on Air Force One, said he would he “not presuppose failure” but acknowledged the talks would come down to the March 31 deadline.

In a sign that a deal is unlikely on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was leaving the talks, just a day after arriving, to return to Moscow for previously planned meetings, according to his spokeswoman. Lavrov will return to Lausanne, Switzerland, on Tuesday if there is a realistic chance for a deal, she said.

All sides are still scrambling to reach common ground.

The New York Times reported late Sunday that, in the latest twist, Tehran had backed away from a tentative promise to ship a large portion of its uranium stockpile to Russia, where it could not be used as part of any future weapons program.

Schultz disputed some details in that report, suggesting there was no agreement with regard to shipping the stockpile to begin with. He reiterated that nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to, and said the stockpile issue is still being worked out.

If Iran insists on keeping its uranium in the country, it could undermine a key argument made in favor of the deal by the Obama administration. The Times reported that if the uranium had gone to Russia, it would have been converted into fuel rods, which are difficult to use in nuclear weapons.

It is not clear what would happen to the uranium if it remained in Iran. One official said Monday that Iran might deal with the issue by diluting its stocks to a level that would not be weapons grade.

The stockpile is just one of several sticking points left to be addressed in the final hours.

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