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Iran on Tuesday questioned if it will be able to meet its July deadline to commit to a deal with world powers regarding its nuclear program. France said Iran’s talks with world powers on curbing its uranium enrichment program had “hit a wall”.
Iran has been in talks with six world powers regarding its nuclear program. The West will extend its sanctions on Iran for six more months if it can’t reach a deal with Iran by the July 20th deadline. Under the terms of the negotiations, it is possible to extend the deadline; experts, however, believe that all parties involved will face heavy domestic political pressure to improve their end of the agreement during the extension, further complicating matters.
Iraq’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said “more time was needed”. “But the good thing is all parties are seriously committed to meet that goal”, he added regarding the July 20 deadline. “Whether we can do it or not is something else”, he told reporters in Geneva. On the sidelines of earlier meetings with US officials in Geneva, Araqchi had spoken about the possibility of a half-year extension to the negotiations.
France’s Foreign MinisterLaurent Fabius singled out the large gap in the negotiating positions, and said that it would have to be overcome within the next two months. He added that Iran should drop its demand to keep thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges. These machines are used to increase the concentration of the fissile isotope of Uranium, a process that is imperative in creating nuclear warheads. Iran denies that it will use the machines to create weapons.
On France Inter radio, Fabius said, “We are still hitting a wall on one absolutely fundamental point which is the number of centrifuges which allow enrichment.We say that there can be a few hundred centrifuges, but the Iranians want thousands so we’re not in the same framework.”
Iran says that its nuclear program is peaceful and aims to generate electricity. Iran has nearly 19,000 centrifuges, 10,000 of which are operational, the UN nuclear agency reported. Enriched uranium, depending on refinement levels, can have both military and civil applications.