BAGHDAD — Iran and six world powers wrapped up talks Thursday still far apart over how to oversee Tehran’s atomic program, but with resolve to keep dialogue going as an alternative to possible military action.
BAGHDAD — Iran and six world powers wrapped up talks Thursday still far apart over how to oversee Tehran’s atomic program, but with resolve to keep dialogue going as an alternative to possible military action.
Envoys said they will meet again next month in Moscow after negotiations stretched out for extra hours and a sandstorm shut the airport in Iraq’s capital. But the two sides agreed on little else during two dramatic days of discussions that underscored the serious challenges of reaching accords between Iran and the West.
“It is clear that we both want to make progress, and that there is some common ground,” European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is formally leading the talks, told reporters. “However, significant differences remain. Nonetheless, we do agree on the need for further discussion to expand that common ground.”
Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, offered a lukewarm assessment of what the negotiations achieved, in light of European and American refusal to lift tough sanctions as Tehran had hoped.
“The result of the talks was that we were able to get more familiar with the views of each other,” Jalili said at a press conference after Ashton left.
The Baghdad discussions began with hopes for progress before each side accused the other of failing to offer meaningful, realistic proposals. More tellingly, they also showed U.S. diplomats and others are pressing neither for quick deals nor for ultimatums that could derail the sensitive talks.
“We are moving in a step-by-step process,” a senior American official told reporters in Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone. “It’s good for them. It’s good for us. It’s good for the world.”
The tempered approach offers insights into shifting American priorities over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The U.S. has gradually moved off its demands for an immediate and complete halt to Iran’s ability to make nuclear fuel, which the West and allies fear could someday provide the foundations of warhead-grade material. Iran denies it seeks atomic arms.
Instead, the Baghdad talks unveiled a Western-backed incentive package that seeks to end Iran’s highest-level uranium enrichment as a first step. That leaves open speculation that Washington could ultimately accept Iran’s demand to keep its enrichment labs in operation — although possibly at reduced levels to produce lower-grade fuel suitable for its lone power-generating reactor.
Such a compromise would likely require Iran to reciprocate with moves such as allowing greater U.N. nuclear inspections and suspending work at a bunker-like enrichment site south of Tehran.
The senior U.S. official said it was still “premature” to delve into this type of endgame bargaining. “It’s having the discussion about the end of the road before you’ve taken the first step in the road,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations more candidly.