Iran nuclear talks extended, diplomats say

Iran and six world powers on Friday agreed to a four-month extension of negotiations on a long-term nuclear deal that would gradually end sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, diplomats close to the talks said.

Iran will be allowed to access $2.8 billion of its frozen assets during the four-month extension, but most sanctions against Tehran will remain in place, U.S. officials said.

"Iran will not get any more money during these four months than it did during the last six months, and the vast majority of its frozen oil revenues will remain inaccessible," said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a statement. "We will continue to vigorously enforce the sanctions that remain in place."

Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China had set a July 20 deadline to complete a long-term agreement that would resolve the decade-old dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. But diplomats said they were unable to overcome significant differences on major sticking points.

"We have reached an agreement to extend the talks," a senior Iranian diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Several Western diplomats echoed his remarks.

It has been clear for days that Iran and the six powers would miss the Sunday deadline to reach an accord due to disagreements on a number of key issues in the discussions.

A senior U.S. official later told reporters that money would be released in tranches. He added that Washington would make clear to countries around the world that "Iran is not open for business" during the four months of extended talks.

In exchange for the money, Kerry said, Iran has agreed to continue neutralizing its most sensitive uranium stocks – uranium that has been enriched to a level of 20 percent – by converting it to fuel for a research reactor in Tehran that is used to make medical isotopes.

Kerry said that the future of Iran's enrichment program was one of the most divisive topics.

"There are very real gaps on issues such as enrichment capacity at the Natanz enrichment facility," he said. "This issue is an absolutely critical component of any potential comprehensive agreement. We have much more work to do in this area, and in others as well."

In a joint statement, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton addressed the extension of the talks.

“During the past few weeks, we have further intensified our efforts, including through the active involvement of E3+3 Foreign Ministers or their Vice Ministers, who came to Vienna on 13 July 2014 to take stock of progress in the talks,” the statement said.

“While we have made tangible progress on some of the issues and have worked together on a text for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, there are still significant gaps on some core issues which will require more time and effort.”

Kerry also addressed the matter in an earlier statement.

“As I said on Monday in Vienna, it is clear to me that we have made tangible progress in our comprehensive negotiations, but there are very real gaps in some areas,” he said.

“Today, we have a draft text that covers the main issues, but there are still a number of brackets and blank spaces in that text. Diplomacy takes time, and persistence is needed to determine whether we can achieve our objectives peacefully.”

Among the issues dividing them are the permissible scope of Iran's nuclear fuel production capacity and how to address the country's suspected past atomic bomb research. The negotiations began in February in Vienna.

The talks are taking place because of a preliminary agreement reached in Geneva in November 2013 that gave Iran limited sanctions relief in exchange for halting some nuclear activities and created time and space for the negotiation of a comprehensive deal to end the decade-long dispute.

The negotiations on a long-term deal were likely to resume in September, diplomats said.

But it remains uncertain whether four more months of high-stakes talks will yield a final agreement, since the underlying differences remain significant after six rounds of meetings this year.

Western nations fear Iran's nuclear program may be aimed at developing a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran denies this.

The powers want Iran to significantly scale back its nuclear-enrichment program to make sure it cannot yield nuclear bombs. Iran wants sanctions that have severely damaged its oil-dependent economy to be lifted as soon as possible.

After years of rising tension between Iran and the West and fears of a new Middle East war, last year's election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran's president led to a thaw in ties that resulted in November's diplomatic breakthrough.

But Iran's new government still insists that the country has a right to develop a nuclear energy program that includes the production of atomic fuel. The West fears that this fuel, if further processed, could also be used to make bombs.

Al Jazeera and Reuters