Iran Talks Continue Past Deadline

Head of Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, second from left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, second from right, walk together during negotiations at an hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland, March 29, 2015.

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND— Ministerial talks between six world powers and Iran on the future of its nuclear program continue in Lausanne, Switzerland the day after the deadline for reaching an interim agreement passed.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is meeting with his colleagues from Britain, Germany and the United States. Senior representatives from France, Russia and China are also taking part - their foreign ministers left the talks earlier.

Russian state media quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying late Tuesday the two sides had agreed in principle on the "key elements" of a deal, which would include measures to ensure Iran's nuclear program is peaceful in return for lifting economic sanctions.

Senior officials on all sides reported progress late Tuesday, justifying their decision to keep talking past the midnight deadline. But the elusive agreement on key points had not been achieved when the sun rose over the Swiss Alps Wednesday morning.

The goal is to agree on key elements of an accord and then give technical experts three months to draft a detailed agreement, potentially ending more than a decade of dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.  The accord is supposed to verifiably guarantee the program is purely peaceful, as Iran claims, and gradually lift a complex web of international economic sanctions.

It appeared to be the sanctions that were the final sticking point, with negotiators unable to come up with a sequence that satisfied Iran’s desire for fast relief and the international negotiators’ desire to ensure Iran could not evade its commitments after sanctions end.

Iran has still not met United Nations Security Council demands for a full accounting of its past secret nuclear weapons program.  Many in the international community worry that Iran could do the same thing again once it is clear of the sanctions, particularly after this agreement expires, expected in 10 to 15 years.

But experts say the emerging accord would provide for extensive inspections that would ensure that does not happen over the long term.

“I think it’s important to acknowledge that some of the monitoring and verification in an agreement will be permanent,” said Kelsey Davenport of the Arms Control Association in Washington.

Davenport noted that as part of the deal, Iran is expected to ratify what is called the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

“That will give the international community far greater access to Iran’s nuclear facilities, and also access to undeclared sites.  It will also give inspectors much more latitude to investigate areas if they think that illicit nuclear activities have taken place there.  Any deviations would be very quickly detected,” said Davenport.

At Georgetown University, Ariane Tabatabai agrees that critics of the negotiations do not give enough credence to the International Atomic Energy Association’s monitoring and verification program, even though Iran has cooperated with it since the preliminary accord was reached a year and a half ago.

“I think that is perhaps the least talked about and the most important part of a deal.  For the most part, people who talk about the Iran talks don’t necessarily know much about the monitoring system.  People don’t necessarily know what the IAEA is doing.  It’s not something you can grasp as easily,” said Tabatabai.

One thing critics can grasp is that the deadline for agreement on the main points has already been missed by at least one day, and they will be looking at whatever comes out of these talks to try to figure out who made the final concessions.  Skeptics, particularly in Iran and in the U.S. Congress, are expected to use whatever is announced here to try to scuttle the process before it is finished in June.  But supporters of the talks warn that the alternative is a return to confrontation, and possibly the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb.