Britain expressed doubts on Wednesday that a nuclear deal could be reached with Iran by a looming deadline, as Tehran and six world powers haggled in a final round of talks in Vienna.Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond indicated the most to be hoped for was enough progress to justify putting yet more time on the clock beyond Monday's cut-off point.
"I am not optimistic that we can get everything done by Monday," he said on a visit to Latvia. "But I think if we make some significant movement, we may be able to find a way of extending the deadline to allow us to get to the final deal, if we are making good progress in the right direction."
| There's the lunch ticket right there... |
Two key issues remain: uranium enrichment -- rendering uranium suitable for peaceful uses but also, at high purities, for a weapon -- and the pace at which sanctions on Iran might be lifted.
Iran wants to massively ramp up the number of enrichment centrifuges -- in order, it says, to make fuel for a fleet of future reactors -- while the West wants them dramatically reduced, reportedly by half. The powers say Iran has no major enrichment need at present. Russia is contracted until 2021 to fuel Iran's only power reactor and last week signed a deal to build and fuel several others.
In exchange for any reduction in its activities, Iran wants sanctions lifted. Bur the powers want to stagger any suspension to be sure that Iran won't renege on its commitments.
"They want everything all at once and this is not realistic," one Western diplomat involved in the talks said.
| Sounds like a proper Persian attitude in the sook... |