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Iran nuclear talks in home stretch

Xinhua, March 31, 2015 Adjust font size:

Foreign ministers from major world powers and Iran Tuesday morning resumed nuclear talks to further narrow gaps on the remaining disagreements, as the lengthey negotiations entered the final day of deadline.

Under the extension of the Geneva 2013 Joint Plan of Action, P5+1 countries, namely the United States, China, Russia, France and Britain plus Germany, and Iran are committed to reaching a political agreement by March 31, and then taking an additional three months to complete any technical annexes by June 30.

With the self-posing deadline being only hours away, top diplomats of P5+1 and Iran kicked off a ministerial meeting in early Tuesday morning after all sides quickened up negotiations throughout Monday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was back to Moscow and absent since Monday's ministerial-level talks. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov joined the talks and Lavrov was expected to return to Lausanne Tuesday afternoon.

"All of us said that the goal was to reach a political understanding by the end of March and use the last three months to finish the annexes and all the technical work," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Monday.

However, she said the United States and Iran have not reached any agreement on the stockpile, one of the outstanding issues that remain to be solved, adding efforts have been made for some breakthrough before the deadline.

A delegate of the Iranian nuclear negotiations team said there is the possibility of working out an agreement on basic issues, Iranian media reported Tuesday. Endi