Iranian president Rouhani, says nuclear deal can be reached

Iranian president Rouhani, says nuclear deal can be reached

Mar. 21, 2015

Iranian president Rouhani, says nuclear deal can be reached
Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, signals that a nuclear deal can be done as John Kerry warns talks are heading towards "hard decisions"

Iranian president Rouhani, says nuclear deal can be reached 21_E2_4

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani Photo: AFP
By AFP

اقتباس :: Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, said on Saturday that a nuclear deal with the West can be reached after recent progress had been made.
"I believe an agreement is possible. There is nothing that cannot be resolved and the other party must make its final decision for this," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.
Mr Rouhani's comments came a day after the latest round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany - ended without a breakthrough.
The long-running talks are aimed at putting an Iranian nuclear bomb out of reach in exchange for easing sanctions on its economy.
"In this round of negotiations (in Lausanne, Switzerland) there were differences on some issues," Mr Rouhani said.
However he added: "Some points of disagreement persist."
John Kerry, US Secretary of State, said he would meet European counterparts in London to try to resolve remaining sticking points. He said talks will resume next week to see whether a deal was possible.
"We are not rushing ... but we recognise that fundamental decisions have to be made now and they don't get any easier as time goes by," he said. "It is time to make hard decisions."
The negotiations are to resume on Wednesday, leaving the two sides with just one week to meet a March 31 deadline for agreeing the outlines of a nuclear deal they hope will end a 12-year deadlock.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister who faced Mr Kerry in talks all week, said his team had been willing to work through the weekend, but the P5+1 needed time to "co-ordinate," hinting at a split between the world powers.
"In some cases, their diversity of interests, political views or personal issues or personalities became more sensitive than the actual negotiations," he wrote on his Facebook page, without naming any of the P5+1 countries.
• How an Iran nuclear deal might transform the balance of power in the Middle East
The highly complex mooted agreement, due to be finalised by the end of June, is aimed at assuring the world Iran will not build nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian energy programme.
It would likely involve Iran reducing in scope its nuclear activities, allowing ultra-tight inspections, exporting atomic material and limiting development of new nuclear machinery.
In exchange, Iran - which denies wanting nuclear weapons - would get staggered relief from the mountain of painful sanctions that have strangled its oil exports and hammered its economy.
On Friday, Mr Kerry sent his "deepest condolences" to Mr Rouhani on the death of his mother, and tied the nuclear deal into his message.
“We share in [Rouhani’s] grief and that of his brother, Presidential Special Advisor Hossein Fereydoun, who has been participating in the talks in Lausanne, and we keep their family in our thoughts,” Kerry said in a press statement. Mr Rouhani mourned for his mother publicly on Twitter.

telegraph.co.uk