Iran nuclear deal: Gulf between Tehran and UN over inspections and sanctions mean deadline will be missed

Tuesday's deadline for a deal with Tehran is set to pass without success. But even as the mood of optimism turns sour over inspections and sanctions, Alistair Dawber reports that hopes of an agreement are still very much alive

A uranium conversion facility outside the city of Isfahan, south of Tehran. Iran has insisted to sceptical Western powers that its nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful (Getty)

After 12 years of on-off negotiations tonight’s deadline for securing a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme will be missed as the talks stumble over Tehran’s willingness to allow inspectors into the country, and the lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Liberals in Iran and the powerful religious conservative element are at loggerheads over details that should be conceded in order to get a deal done.

What happens depends largely on whether Iran’s liberal wing, led by President Hassan Rouhani, can persuade the country’s conservatives that Tehran will not lose face in the detail of any lasting agreement.

The latest round of negotiations in Vienna are scheduled to reach a settlement over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which many in the West and in the Middle East insist are set firmly on building a weapons capability. Tehran says its programme is peaceful, and that it has a right to develop nuclear power. Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif left the talks on Sunday and returned to Tehran for “guidance”.

The Iranian delegation said that the departure was scheduled and that he would return for discussions with US Secretary of State, John Kerry, on Tuesday. Diplomats from the the Western-led negotiating team, from the so-called P5+1, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, insisted however that Iran was attempting to backtrack on previously agreed measures.

At the last meeting between the international and Iranian negotiators, which ended at the beginning of April in Lausanne, a broad technical framework was agreed over the number of centrifuges Iran would be able to operate, among other issues. A number of other details – including the exact timing of the easing of sanctions – were delayed. And, despite a public insistence that a deal could be agreed this week, it appears the optimism that greeted April’s talks has now turned sour. “It feels like we haven’t advanced on the technical issues and have even gone back on some,” a Western diplomat told Reuters.

The Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, who arrived in Vienna on Sunday, suggested that the gulf between the two sides was significant.

“There are a number of different areas where we still have major differences of interpretation in detailing what was agreed in Lausanne,” he said. “There is going to have to be some give or take if we are to get this done in the next few days.”

The sticking point in Vienna appears to be the extent to which inspectors will be able to work at Iran’s nuclear facilities. The West is also insistent that any watering down of sanctions should be reversed if Tehran fails to co-operate with inspectors. The agreement reached in Lausanne was hailed as the first significant breakthrough between the two parties. Since then, however, a number of factors have undermined the rapprochement. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly asserted Iran’s right to enrich uranium, and last week said that “freezing Iran’s Research and Development for a long time like 10 or 12 years is not acceptable.

“All financial and economic sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, the US Congress or the US government should be lifted immediately when we sign a nuclear agreement,” he said.

Some analysts believe, however, that Mr Khamenei is behind the deal and that interventions are tactical, rather than an attempt to scupper it. “Even if tomorrow’s deadline is missed, and it probably will be, it does not mean that the talks are over,” said Dr Beyza Unal, a research fellow at Chatham House.

“Khamenei does want a deal, and his interventions are an attempt to buy into the negotiations. Under both Rouhani and [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad [the previous Iranian president], the talks have progressed, but they would not have done so without Khamenei’s will. He sees them as a way of getting sanctions lifted and as a way of getting close to the US.”

Both sides are under pressure from several sources. While the Iranian’s have internal discussions, the US and its Western allies have also been attacked by their biggest ally in the Middle East, and Iran’s greatest enemy, Israel, which has asserted that the framework based on what was agreed in April would be a bad deal.

There has also been parallel tensions between the Americans and Iranians over fighting in Yemen, which has evolved into a regional conflagration with Iran backing the country’s Shia rebels and the Saudis launching airstrikes on their positions. Washington has backed the Saudi strikes.

While Mr Kerry indicated in a speech two weeks ago that sanctions might be eased ahead of any new deal on inspections, the European members of the P5+1, particularly France, appear uneasy about any further concessions. It was reported at the end of May by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Tehran had increased its stockpile of nuclear fuel by 20 per cent in the previous 18 months.

France’s Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, warned that any lasting deal would be “robust” indicating that Paris was unwilling to make many concessions. Mr Fabius said that other countries in the region “will push to become nuclear as well,” if the final deal with Iran offered too many freebies to Tehran.

The Saudis – a long standing rival to the Iranians – have indicated that they might consider building a nuclear capability should Iran get one, threatening to spark an arms race in the already fragile region.