Iran talks go into top gear in battle of wills

Tortuous negotiations aimed at laying to rest fears Iran will get nuclear weapons moved into top gear today as both sides demanded the other give ground as a deadline loomed.
"We're at that point in the negotiations where we really need to see decisions being made," a senior US State Department official said late yesterday at the talks in Lausanne, Switzerland.
"The work is very complicated and difficult. The other side needs to choose between pressure and a political accord," countered Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
France's top diplomat Laurent Fabius, the most hawkish in the P5+1 group of countries negotiating with Iran since late 2013, will be the first European minister to fly in for the crunch talks.

He will join US Secretary of State John Kerry, Zarif and negotiators from the six powers, chasing an agreement on the broad outlines of a what they hope will be a historic deal by Tuesday.
Since a major diplomatic push to resolve the long-running crisis began in 2013, Kerry and the US-educated Zarif have met multiple times but have twice missed a deadline to nail down an accord.

The powers want Iran to shrink its nuclear programme in order to make any dash to make a bomb under the guise of its civilian atomic programme all but impossible and easily detectable.

In return Iran wants an easing of international sanctions which have excluded the Islamic republic from lucrative oil markets and crippled its economy.
Tomorrow China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov will reportedly fly in, as well as the EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.
Kerry, Fabius and German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier will have a working lunch today, a US official said. Britain's Philip Hammond said was on stand-by to come.
The emerging accord is to be rounded out with complex technical annexes by a June 30 deadline.
But Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters today morning that "no text has been prepared".

The US State Department official, asking not to be named, agreed the negotiations "have been tough and very serious".
President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also upped the pressure on Iran.
"Iran must make the decisions necessary to resolve several remaining issues," a statement said after the two leaders spoke by telephone.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called Thursday for the "unjust" sanctions choking the country's economy to be lifted as he wrote letters to the leaders of all six countries.