A highly-anticipated meeting of six major world powers (P5+1) and Iran ended in Geneva on Sunday without a deal on Tehran’s nuclear programme, but US Secretary of State John Kerry termed the meeting “very productive” with “significant progress” having been made in narrowing differences.
Top diplomats of US, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany of the P5+1 bloc held two days of marathon negotiations with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif, but failed to reach a deal on suspension of key parts of Iran’s nuclear programmes in exchange for some relief on economic sanctions.
A renewed bid to conclude a deal will be made on November 20. Commenting on the deliberations, Kerry said: “We came to Geneva to narrow the differences. And I can tell you without any exaggeration we not only narrowed differences and clarified those that remain, but we made significant progress in working through the approaches to this question of how one brings in a programme that guarantees this peaceful nature.”
“There’s no question in my mind that we are closer now, as we leave Geneva, than we were when we came, and that with good work and good faith over the course of the next weeks, we can in fact secure our goal,” Kerry said. Given the “very complicated, technical, difficult” nature of issues under discussion, Kerry said all the parties need time to fully consider the issues, adding: “I particularly am anxious to return to brief the President and to share with Congress and others what we’ve learned and what we are thinking as we look forward.”
Kerry cautioned against “jumping to conclusions or believing premature reports or prejudging outcomes” of the negotiations that were taking place “enormously privately”. The next meeting on November 20 will bring the political directors to the table in what was described by Kerry as a “reflection of wanting to get language issues that came up absolutely resolved, so the ministers, when they come, have a sense that everybody is in agreement with respect to the particular language”.
“We’ve made a lot of progress. Now we go to the next step and hopefully, when the ministers come back – two weeks or so, something like that – we’ll be in the position to move forward,” Kerry said.