Europe

Kerry Meets French Counterpart Ahead of Iran Nuclear Talks in Vienna

By MICHAEL R. GORDONNOV. 20, 2014

Secretary of State John Kerry, right, with the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, in Paris on Thursday. Credit Pool photo by Remy De La Mauviniere

PARIS — Secretary of State John Kerry met with his French counterpart here on Thursday as he sought to close ranks with a key negotiating partner before heading to Vienna for a crucial round of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

In a joint appearance before reporters, Mr. Kerry and Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, sought to present a tableau of unity as the talks approach a Monday deadline.

While both diplomats expressed hope that progress could be made with the Iranians, they acknowledged that major stumbling blocks remained.

“There remain important points of difference,” said Mr. Fabius.

Mr. Kerry added, “We hope that the gaps that exist, and they do exist, can be closed.”

Experts have little expectation that an accord, if it can be achieved next week by the negotiating countries — Iran, the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — will be the comprehensive and detailed agreement the West has long sought.

And some of the United States’ negotiating partners have already begun to send signals that the immediate goal is a partial understanding that would codify fresh progress while extending the negotiating deadline yet again.

“I’m not optimistic that we can get everything done by Monday,” said Philip Hammond, Britain’s foreign minister, during a trip to Latvia on Wednesday. “But I think if we make some significant movement we may be able to find a way of extending the deadline to allow us to get to the final deal.”

At a news conference after his meeting with Mr. Fabius, Mr. Kerry insisted that his goal for the current round of talks remained resolving the key elements of a comprehensive accord.

“We are not talking about an extension,” Mr. Kerry said. “We are driving towards what we believe is the outline of an agreement that we think we can have.”

Even securing a partial understanding, however, will prove challenging.

In a bit of diplomatic jockeying, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said this week that an agreement was possible, but only if the United States and other world powers did not make unreasonable demands.

“If, because of excessive demands” an agreement is not reached, “the world will understand that the Islamic Republic sought a solution, a compromise and a constructive agreement and that it will not renounce its rights and the greatness of the nation,” Mr. Zarif told the Iranian news media after arriving in Vienna on Tuesday for the talks.

Russian officials, in anonymous comments to Russian news outlets, have echoed the theme that it is up to Mr. Kerry to show flexibility, especially regarding the pace at which economic sanctions on Iran would be lifted.

Mr. Kerry, in contrast, has cautioned that it is time for Iran to make the hard decisions about which nuclear constraints it is prepared to accept.

“It’s imperative, obviously, that Iran work with us in all possible effort to prove to the world the program is peaceful,” Mr. Kerry said in London on Tuesday.

The Obama administration is facing countervailing pressures in Washington, where Republican lawmakers have been urging the White House to harden its negotiating position.

The talks will turn on how many and what type of centrifuges Iran will be allowed to keep to enrich uranium, what happens to the nuclear material Tehran already possesses, measures to constrain Iran’s ability to produce plutonium, and the duration of the accord.

All measures need to be synchronized with a schedule for suspending or lifting sanctions that would mollify Iran while preserving the West’s leverage in case an accord begins to fray.

Mr. Kerry’s meeting with Mr. Fabius was to coordinate the negotiating strategy. But another American aim is to create the impression that there is unity on the Western side.

Last year, an important round of negotiations with Iran was complicated by reports that the French were insisting that the American position be toughened, particularly with regard to a heavy-water reactor under construction at Arak, Iran.

American officials insisted that those reports, which were supported by comments by Mr. Zarif, were overblown and said there were no significant differences between Washington and Paris. But mindful of that episode, American officials are eager to counter any perception of fissures in the West’s ranks as the current round of negotiations moves into high gear.

Mr. Kerry said after his meeting with Mr. Fabius that the French diplomat had given him a document listing four main points on the talks, and that he generally agreed with them.

“We may have minor differences here and there on numbers, but not on the fundamental principles,” Mr. Kerry said.

During his visit to Paris, Mr. Kerry also met with Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister. Saudi Arabia, a regional rival of Iran, is worried that an agreement will leave Iran with a significant nuclear infrastructure that Tehran could use if it sought to develop nuclear weapons.

Before heading to Paris, Mr. Kerry conferred in London with Mr. Hammond and met twice there with Yusuf bin Alawi, the Omani foreign minister, who recently went to Tehran. On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Kerry flew to Vienna.

Oman has served as a site for back-channel talks between American and Iranian officials, and the Omanis have played an important role as a conduit for the two sides.

If diplomats opt for some form of an extension, it would be the second time that a self-imposed deadline has been pushed back in the quest for a far-reaching agreement with the Iranians.

The interim agreement that was negotiated last year to temporarily freeze much of Iran’s nuclear activity was initially supposed to have expired in July, and then extended until Nov. 24 after Mr. Kerry said the talks were making tangible progress.

“This will give us a short amount of additional time to continue working to conclude a comprehensive agreement, which we believe is warranted by the progress we’ve made and the path forward we can envision,” Mr. Kerry said in July.