Iran Nuclear Deal Said to Miss Friday’s Congress Deadline

Optimism is fading after 13 days of high-level nuclear talks between Iran and world powers, raising the possibility that almost two years of intense diplomacy could unravel if they don’t reach a deal in coming days.

Negotiators won’t seal a deal on Thursday or Friday because there are gaps and language in the draft accord that still need to be addressed, according to senior government officials from two countries involved in talks. The diplomats, who asked not to be identified in line with rules, said they are confident there will be a deal.

“We will not rush, and we will not be rushed,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters Thursday outside the Palais Coburg during a break in the Vienna talks. “We believe we are making real progress.”

But Kerry also said that “this is not open-ended” and that President Barack Obama had told him in a conversation the previous night that the U.S. is prepared to call an end to the process if needed.

For energy-rich Iran, an agreement could speed its return to oil markets and lift financial sanctions. For the U.S. and its regional allies, who view Iran with suspicion, the goal is to restrict the Islamic Republic’s ability to pursue nuclear weapons.

Congress Deadline

Diplomats are already close to missing a a deadline of Friday morning Vienna time under rules set by U.S. legislation for review of any accord.

After that cutoff, Congress will have 60 days to review the agreement instead of 30, delaying the sanctions relief that Iran wants. If the talks extend even further, so that a deal is reached after U.S. lawmakers return from their summer recess, the review period would revert to the original 30 days.

Obama told senators earlier this week that Kerry is more likely than not to come home empty-handed than with a deal. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, writing in Thursday’s Financial Times, said an agreement was “far from assured.”

Failure to clinch a deal would be a “tragedy” but can’t be ruled out, an Obama administration official said earlier this week. Citing an unidentified diplomat, Iran’s state-run Press TV reported that talks may go to July 13th.

‘Critical Choice’

Iran’s negotiating partners need to make the “critical choice” between an agreement and coercion, Zarif wrote. Iran is open to address “shared challenges” including “increasingly brutal extremism,” he added.

Zarif’s emphasis on the Iranian role fighting Islamic State highlights one of the last remaining gaps that have separated the sides since Tuesday.

Iran and Russia have insisted, in discussions that became acrimonious, that a United Nations arms embargo be lifted under a deal. The U.S. has dismissed a wholesale lifting, though it may be flexible on the nature and duration of the embargo.

The arms embargo “should be among the first steps taken in lifting the sanctions regime,” Lavrov told reporters on Thursday in Ufa, Russia. “We advocate the removal of the weapons embargo as soon as possible, especially as Iran is a supporter of the fight against Islamic State.”

More than 95 percent of the deal has been drafted, though the remaining steps are most complex, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Thursday in Ufa, Russia. Final agreement is possible at any moment, the RIA Novosti news agency cited him as saying. https://www.mql5.com/en/signals/111434