Iran and six world powers suspended negotiations on a historic nuclear deal and were set to convene again later next week to break a deadlock over sensitive atomic research and lifting of sanctions, Western officials said on Friday (March 20).
While the negotiations have made progress over the past year and both sides appear determined to push for a deal, differences on major sticking points are still wide enough to potentially prevent an agreement in the end.
On the sixth day of talks at a 19th century hotel in the Swiss city of Lausanne, plans for the delegations changed repeatedly over the course of several hours. At one point, the foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany were expected to join the talks on Saturday.
Less than an hour later those plans were called into question after the Iranian delegation informed their U.S., British, French, Germany, Russian and Chinese counterparts that they would be returning to Tehran due to the death of President Hassan Rouhani’s 90-year-old mother on Friday morning.
Tehran’s delegation checked out of the hotel and headed to the airport. All sides agreed a resumption late next week was likely.
Prior to the Iranian departure, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Iranian Atomic Energy Organisationchief Ali Akbar Salehi held another series of meetings to break the impasse.
In addition, technical and political experts from the parties have been gathering daily to discuss options that could form the basis of an agreement under which Iran would accept curbs on sensitive nuclear work for at least a decade and sanctions would be gradually eased.
There was no breakthrough this week.
The European ministers, rather than coming to Lausanne, may meet elsewhere in Europe over the weekend ahead of an end-March deadline for a political framework agreement and a full nuclear deal by June 30, Western officials said.
Reuters