{ Iran and six world powers begin a final round of nuclear talks in Vienna Tuesday, six days before a deadline for a deal with differences still considerable despite months of negotiations.}<\/p>\n
“We still have gaps to close and do not yet know if we will be able to do so,” a senior US official warned late Monday.<\/p>\n
If the sides do strike an accord, it would consign to history a 12-year standoff between the West and the Islamic republic over its nuclear programme by making any Iranian drive to make atomic weapons virtually impossible.<\/p>\n
It would also help normalise Iran’s relations with the West, improve the lives of ordinary Iranians and give US President Barack Obama a rare foreign policy success.<\/p>\n
The United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany (the P5+1) want Iran to scale down and put limits on its nuclear programme.<\/p>\n
Iran, which says its nuclear aims are exclusively peaceful, wants painful sanctions lifted and a recognition of its “right” to a peaceful nuclear programme.<\/p>\n
US and Iranian negotiations are under domestic pressure not to give too much away, however, while Israel — widely assumed to be the Middle East’s sole nuclear-armed power — and others in the volatile region are sceptical.<\/p>\n
Last November, after moderate Hassan Rouhani became president, an interim deal was struck but the parties missed a July 20 deadline for a lasting accord, giving themselves four more months.<\/p>\n
Now, with this new deadline days away, it is “time to finish the job”, said chief US negotiator Wendy Sherman.<\/p>\n
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was due to hold a working lunch in the Austrian capital Tuesday with the powers’ lead negotiator, former EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.<\/p>\n
The first session involving all sides was scheduled in the afternoon. Foreign ministers including US Secretary of State John Kerry were expected later in the week.<\/p>\n
More on AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{ Iran and six world powers begin a final round of nuclear talks in Vienna Tuesday, six days before a deadline for a deal with differences still considerable despite months of negotiations.} “We still have gaps to close and do not yet know if we will be able to do so,” a senior US official […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000055051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-17432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000055051,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17432.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17432.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17432.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17432.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17432.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17432.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000055051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17432"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=17432"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=17432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}