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U.S., Iran to have more nuclear talks

Xinhua, March 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will have more nuclear talks with his Iranian counterpart next week in efforts to map out the outline of a potential deal by the end of this month, the State Department said Monday.

Kerry's meeting with Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif, their third in three weeks, is slated for March 15 in the Swiss city of Lausanne, department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki told reporters at a daily news briefing.

She described the upcoming talks as part of the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group comprising the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, plus Germany.

The two sides are aiming for a comprehensive agreement over Tehran's controversial nuclear program by the end of June, as they have failed to meet two self-imposed deadlines over the past year.

Progress has been made in narrowing the gaps with Iran, "but those gaps still exist," U.S. President Barack Obama told CBS News in an interview aired Sunday.

Obama said Washington and its partners were offering Tehran "an extraordinarily reasonable deal" and Iran's seriousness would be tested "over the next month or so."

Forty-seven U.S. Republican senators warned Monday, however, that a deal with Iran will be at risk once Obama leaves office in January 2017.

"It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system," the senators wrote in an open letter to Iranian leaders. "Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement."

"The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time," the letter read.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest described the letter as "the continuation of a partisan strategy to undermine the president's ability to conduct foreign policy and advance our national security interests around the globe."

The Republicans, who started to take control of both chambers of Congress in January, are seeking congressional approval of any deal reached with Iran. Endite