[According to European officials, roughly 5,000 centrifuges will remain spinning enriched uranium at the main nuclear site at Natanz, about half the number currently running. The giant underground enrichment site at Fordo — which Israeli and some American officials fear is impervious to bombing — will be partly converted to advanced nuclear research and the production of medical isotopes. Foreign scientists will be present. There will be no fissile material present that could be used to make a bomb.]
By Michael R.
Gordon and David E.
Sanger
 |
| Secretary of State John Kerry and Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of Iran, arrived at a news conference on Thursday in Lausanne, Switzerland. |
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Iran and European nations said
here tonight that they had reached a surprisingly specific and comprehensive
general understanding about next steps in limiting Tehran’s nuclear program, but officials said that some
important issues needed to be resolved before a final agreement in June that
would allow the Obama administration to assert it has cut off all of Iran’s
pathways to a nuclear weapon.
Both Germany’s foreign office and President Hassan
Rouhani of Iran said that key parameters of a framework for a final accord had
been reached, with the details to be negotiated by June 30. But Western
diplomats cautioned that on several of the key issues that were debated here
for the past eight days between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart,
Mohammad Javad Zarif, there were still significant differences.
Nevertheless, there was no mistaking the upbeat mood
surrounding the announcement. “We have stopped a cycle that is not in the
interest of anybody,” an exuberant Mr. Zarif said at a news conference after
the announcement.
Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said in a
statement, “This is well beyond what many of us thought possible even 18
months ago and a good basis for what I believe could be a very good deal.” Mr.
Kerry is scheduled to give a news conference, at which he is expected to
provide some details of the American understanding of what was negotiated.
According to European officials, roughly 5,000
centrifuges will remain spinning enriched uranium at the main nuclear site at
Natanz, about half the number currently running. The giant underground
enrichment site at Fordo — which Israeli and some American officials fear is
impervious to bombing — will be partly converted to advanced nuclear research
and the production of medical isotopes. Foreign scientists will be present.
There will be no fissile material present that could be used to make a bomb.
A major reactor at Arak, which officials feared could
produce plutonium, would operate on a limited basis that would not provide
enough fuel for a bomb.
In return the European Union and the United States would
begin to lift sanctions, as Iran complied. At a news conference after the
announcement, Mr. Zarif said that essentially all sanctions would be lifted
after the final agreement is signed.
The announcement was made at a university in Lausanne,
with Mr. Kerry standing with his fellow foreign ministers. But the first
statement came from the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica
Mogherini, and Mr. Zarif. “Today we have taken a decisive step. We have reached
solutions on key parameters of a comprehensive political solution.”
President Obama was scheduled to make an announcement at
the White House, hoping that the detail announced here tonight — more
comprehensive than had been expected — would hold off congressional action to
place additional sanctions on Iran. But it is unclear whether the White House
will try to find a way for Congress to indicate its approval or disapproval of
whatever agreement emerges on June 30, assuming the final accord can be
reached.
Western diplomats were quick to warn that there was more
to do. “The fine detail of any deal will be very important, Mr. Hammond said,
“in particular specifics of oversight measures and mechanisms for handling U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
For example, it was unclear how and whether Iran would
be compelled to answer the International Atomic Energy Agency’s outstanding
questions about “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s program in the past.
Mr. Zarif, speaking in Lausanne, said “none of those
measures require closing any of our facilities,” something he said the “proud
people” of Iran would never allow. He said, for example, that centrifuges would
remain in the underground Fordo site, but that no enrichment of uranium would
take place there.
It was the kind of careful balance that marks the deal:
Allowing Iran to keep its facilties running, but under restrictions that would
reach President Obama’s goal that it would take more than a year to produce a
weapon’s worth of material.
Still, Mr. Zarif said “we are still some time away from
being where we want to be,” suggesting that the negotiation of the details
would be difficult.
Just minutes before the announcements, Mr. Zarif sent
out a Twitter message saying the negotiators had
“found solutions” and were, “Ready to start drafting immediately.” Iran’s
president, Hassan Rouhani, sent a similar tweet.
Obama administration officials have insisted that the
current round of talks here produce more than a general understanding. They
want a “quantitative dimension” — that is, specific limits on Iran’s nuclear
program that the White House can cite to push back against congressional moves
for additional sanctions.
President Obama had set March 31 as a deadline for
reaching a political accord to define the main terms of a final, comprehensive
agreement due by the end of June.
The Obama administration has extended that self-imposed deadline. But at
the same time the White House has warned publicly that it is prepared to step
back from the diplomacy if it is clear that the initial accord cannot be
reached.
An all-night round of talks ended at 6 a.m. local time
on Thursday, or midnight Eastern time. Mr. Zarif noted that some diplomats had
not slept, and fatigue was visible on the faces of some aides who straggled
into the breakfast room of the luxury hotel here where the talks are being held
under tight security.
Shortly before 11 a.m., the deliberations resumed as Mr.
Kerry met with Ms. Mogherini and the chief diplomats of Britain, France and
Germany. Russia and China, whose foreign minsters have left the talks, were represented
by lower-ranking officials.
Mr. Zarif said the purpose of the meeting would be to
assess the “solutions” that Iran had discussed with the Americans and their
negotiating partners overnight.
The form of any understanding with Iran has been at issue for weeks.
But there have been other complicated questions, including how
quickly sanctions on Iran might be eased and what nuclear research would be
permitted on advanced centrifuges.
An idea to suspend certain United Nations sanctions
temporarily but to arrange for them to automatically “snap back” into place if
Iran does not fulfill its commitments under a nuclear accord has also prompted
concerns from Russia that such a procedure might dilute the authority of its
Security Council veto power.
For weeks, some critics have complained that the March
31 deadline the Obama administration had set for a preliminary accord might
diminish its leverage in the talks by adding to the pressure on American
negotiators to make last-minute concessions.
Thomas Erdbrink contributed reporting from Tehran, and Julie
Hirschfeld Davis from Washington.
