Iran and major powers are close to agreeing a two- or three-page accord with specific numbers as the basis of a resolution of a 12-year standoff over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, officials have told Reuters.
As the French and German foreign ministers arrived in Switzerland yesterday to join talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Western and Iranian officials familiar with the negotiations cautioned that they could still fail.
Kerry and Zarif have been in Lausanne for days to try to reach an outline agreement by a self-imposed deadline of March 31 between Iran on the one hand and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China on the other.
“The sides are very, very close to the final step and it could be signed or agreed and announced verbally,” a senior Iranian official familiar with the talks told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Other officials echoed the remarks while warning that several crucial issues were still being hotly debated.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters on arrival: “I hope we can get a robust agreement. Iran has the right to civil nuclear power, but with regard to the atomic bomb, it’s ‘no’.”
