Any agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program must guarantee that all sanctions against that country are lifted, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator told reporters Wednesday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also said Iran insists on being allowed to continue research and development of advanced centrifuges used to enrich uranium — an issue that casts doubt on whether the country’s nuclear program is peaceful.
Those two issues appeared to be the remaining sticking points in ongoing talks between Iran and the P5+1 group — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — on a deal aimed at ensuring Iran does not try to develop a nuclear weapon.
“It is not possible to have a deal without lifting sanctions, all sanctions must be removed,” Araghchi said. “Until we have solutions to all problems we cannot have a comprehensive agreement.”
Another Iranian negotiator, Hamid Baeidinejad, said Tuesday that the P5+1 had agreed to lift sanctions on Iran’s oil, gas and banking sectors as soon as a deal is implemented, though details had not been worked out.
“The termination of oil sanctions, gas sanctions, financial banking … many of them have been resolved. … But still there are a limited number of areas that are still under negotiations, which we hope we can resolve them and then we can admit that the whole issue of sanctions is resolved,” Baeidinejad said.
The talks continued into Wednesday after negotiators blew past another self-imposed deadline to craft a political framework for a final deal that would replace a November 2013 interim agreement. The interim deal, intended to last only six months, has been extended twice and expires July 1.
The dispute over sanctions has put the U.S. negotiating team, led by Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, under pressure since it’s also the primary focus of congressional concerns about any deal. Many of the sanctions in dispute are enacted into U.S. law, and Congress would need to act to overturn them. But lawmakers from both parties are skeptical of the administration’s negotiating strategy and want guarantees that any deal would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Reported concessions made by U.S. negotiators already in the talks have raised concerns among international experts about whether the deal can keep Iran at least a year away from developing a nuclear weapon if it decides to cheat. Experts have said that allowing Iran to develop and operate advanced centrifuges would add to those concerns.
Araghchi said negotiators would issue a statement later Wednesday detailing the progress they had made and what differences remained, but noted that Iran was in no hurry.
“Time is important to us, but the content of the negotiations and our demands are more important,” Araghchi told reporters.
