John Kerry, US
secretary of state, has arrived in Geneva, where he joins top-level
diplomats from six other foreign nations for talks aimed at reaching a nuclear
deal with Iran.
Saturday’s meeting
will be the second time in two weeks involving Kerry and other senior
emissaries in the Swiss city after intensive talks failed there shortly
after midnight on November 10.
Kerry decided to go
back for another try “in light of the progress being made” and
“with the hope that an agreement will be reached”, Marie Harf, State
Department spokesperson, said on Friday.
He will be joined
again by his French, British and German counterparts – respectively
Laurent Fabius, William Hague and Guido Westerwelle – plus Russia’s Sergey
Lavrov, who arrived in Geneva on Friday.
China’s Wang Yi had
missed the previous gathering but will be present in Geneva on Saturday.
The talks “have
reached their final moment”, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei
said, as Wang left Beijing early on Saturday morning.
But Breeze Magazine
correspondent, reporting from Washington DC, said Kerry’s appearance did
not necessarily mean the talks were close to a resolution. “This is not
happening because a deal is imminent but because it might be useful for the US
secretary of state to be in the room with the other top diplomats working out
these thorny issues,” she said.
Hassan Rouhani’s
election in June as the president of Iran has created big hopes that
the deadlock over the country’s nuclear work can be resolved
after a decade of failed diplomatic initiatives and rising tensions.
Risks of
failure
The risks posed by
failure are high: further nuclear expansion by Iran, more painful sanctions and
the possibility of Israeli and even US military action.
Iran says its
nuclear programme is peaceful but many in the international community suspect
it is aimed at developing nuclear weapons.
The powers want Iran
to stop spinning, for six months initially, some of its many thousand
centrifuges enriching uranium to levels close to weapons-grade.
They also want
Tehran to stop construction work at Arak and to grant the International Atomic
Energy Agency more intrusive inspection rights.
In return they are
offering Iran minor and reversible relief from painful sanctions including
access to several billion dollars in oil revenues and easing some trade
restrictions.
This “first
phase” deal would build trust and ease tensions while negotiators push on
for a final accord that ends once and for all fears that Iran will get an
atomic bomb.
A major sticking
point however has been Iran’s demand – as expressed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
the supreme leader, this week – for recognition of its “right”
to enrich uranium.
