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1st LD Writethru: Kerry urges Iran to "make difficult decisions" for nuclear deal

Xinhua, March 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday urges Iran to take more decisive steps to meet the requirements for reaching a final deal over its nuclear program.

"Unless Iran is able to make the difficult decisions that are required, there won't be a deal," he told a press conference, right after addressing the High-Level Segment of the Human Rights Council here in Geneva.

"Right now, no deal exists, no partial deal exists," he said.

However, Kerry said he saw "some progress" in the talks as negotiators trying hard to reach the outline of a final deal that they want by July.

Later on Monday Kerry is supposed to meet his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Montreux, Switzerland, where the new round of Iran nuclear talks will start.

The talks will be continued on Wednesday by senior diplomats from Iran and the P5+1 group, namely the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

It has been over a year since Iran and the world's major countries agreed to come back to the negotiating table for the Iranian nuclear program in 2013.

Under an interim deal between Iran and the P5+1 inked in November, 2013, Iran said it would suspend critical nuclear activities in return for limited ease of sanctions, with all sides seeking a comprehensive deal.

After missing twice self-imposed deadlines, the negotiators agreed in November 2014 to extend the deadline for another seven months and aimed to reach a political framework deal by the end of March. Endit