Iran: Major powers divided in nuke talks

VIENNA – As intense negotiations over Iran’s disputed nuclear program appeared to suddenly bog down, a senior Iranian official charged Thursday that the six powers seeking a deal are backtracking on commitments and bickering among themselves.

The official spoke after Secretary of State John Kerry damped hopes for a quick conclusion of the talks, publicly acknowledging that contentious issues remained and negotiators weren’t going to meet a congressional deadline of midnight Thursday in Washington.

“We should not get up and leave simply because the clock strikes midnight,” Kerry told reporters outside the hotel in the Austrian capital where talks have been taking place. “We will not rush, and we will not be rushed.”

Although he said negotiators had made “real progress toward a comprehensive deal,” he also warned that “we are absolutely prepared to call an end to this process” if it appears to be fruitless.

“We are not going to sit at the negotiating table forever,” he said.

Negotiators for Iran and six world powers – the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China – have been laboring all week to complete the complex deal, and the dueling statements to reporters suggested fresh friction.

The negotiators are seeking an accord that will ease economic sanctions on Iran if it accepts restrictions aimed at preventing it from obtaining a nuclear bomb within 10 to 15 years.

The Iranian official, who declined to be identified in discussing the closed-door talks, said the six countries have sought to renegotiate parts of the preliminary agreement announced April 2 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

He said the disagreements came to a head this week, as the Iranian negotiators have struggled to come to terms with conflicting demands from the six.

“There have been changes of position, and multiple positions,” he said. Iran was being forced to try to make a series of bilateral deals, rather than trying to negotiate with a group that had a common position, he said.

The charges of internal bickering touch on a sensitive subject with the six major powers. They can bring diplomatic pressure to bear in part because they speak with a single voice. Officials always insist that the group is strongly united.

The six countries are known to disagree on whether to end United Nations bans on sales of conventional arms and missiles to Iran.