Roundup: Iran nuclear nogatiators return back to Switzerland for "possible deal"

A fresh round of talks over Iran's long-disputed nuclear program will resume Sunday evening in Lausanne of Switzerland, which will participated by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, as well as diplomats from other world major countries.

A source close to the Iranian delegate said that after meeting his U.S. counterpart Sunday evening in Lausanne, Zarif will go to Brussels to talk with his EU peers and then will return to Lausanne for further talks.

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, and U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz also are scheduled to meet in a bilateral nuclear talks Sunday afternoon in Lausanne.

The Information office of Switzerland's Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) on Sunday morning has opened a press center in Lausanne, the first time of its kind for the Iran nuclear talks this year held in the country.

"Through agreement with the participating parties, Switzerland will be organizing media accreditation and a press filing center for the international media traveling to Lausanne to cover the nuclear negotiations with Iran," the FDFA Information office said in a letter to the press.

According to a source close to Zarif, the Iranian top diplomat said in the plane to Lausanne earlier on Sunday that if there were political will, making a deal would be possible.

"If other side's political will were like ours, deal would not be out of mind," Zarif was cited as saying.

Kerry said earlier that he hoped "in the next days" it would be possible to reach an interim deal with Iran if Tehran can show that its nuclear power program is for peaceful purposes only.

"If it's peaceful, let's get it done. And my hope is that in the next days that will be possible," he said in Egypt before heading to Switzerland.

The last round of Iran unclear talks was held at the beginning of this month, in Switzerlands's lakeside resort town of Montreux, in which both Kerry and Zarif participated.

"We will return to these talks on the 15th of March, recognizing that time is of the essence, the days are ticking by," Kerry said last time when leaving Montreux.

Along with the bilateral nuclear talks between the United States and Iran, the P5+1 talks over Iran's nuclear program will also resume throughout next week, during which representatives from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will hold negotiations with Iran.

The six world major countries had set a June 30 deadline to forge a final and comprehensive agreement, but the United States has said earlier that it hope to reach a "framework agreement" by the end of March.

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 final and comprehensive deal.

After missing twice self-imposed deadlines, the negotiators agreed in November 2014 to extend the deadline for another seven months, hoping to reach a deal which could be one of the most important and divisive international agreements in decades. Endit