Vienna -
The prospect of ending a long-running dispute over Iran's nuclear programme was pushed to next year when six world powers and Iran announced that negotiations would not be concluded by midnight as planned, but by mid-2015.
Foreign ministers from Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany argued on Monday that progress on an agreement had been made and that new proposals over the last several days warranted further discussion.
Disagreements remained on a nuclear deal with Iran, US Secretary of State John Kerry said, “but given how far we have come over the past year and particularly in the past few days, this is certainly not the time to get up and walk away”.
Gaps remain over the exact extent to which Iran will have to scale back uranium enrichment activities that can be used both for making reactor fuel and nuclear weapons material, and how fast the sanctions can be lifted.
“The biggest problem was that there was mutual distrust,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said, summing up the reason for the remaining gaps.
Both sides are now aiming to outline a deal by March, with a final agreement expected by the middle of 2015.
An agreement would curb Iran's civilian nuclear programme and ensure that it cannot be used to make a nuclear weapon. In return, the six powers would incrementally lift all sanctions.
Zarif and Catherine Ashton, the lead negotiator of the sextet, stressed that they wanted to complete the negotiations as soon as possible, perhaps before the new deadlines.
“We will not be waiting until June - we will not be waiting until March,” Zarif vowed.
Work on the deal started last year, shortly after Hassan Rowhani succeeded hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iranian president.
Both Rowhani and US President Barack Obama at home are under pressure from conservative politicians, who are sceptical of rapprochement between the two countries, which cut ties after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“It is true that we have not reached an agreement, but there were important steps in that direction,” Rowhani told Iranian state television.
He said that a deal would come “if not today, then tomorrow”.
Kerry appealed to the opposition Republican-dominated US Congress for time to keep negotiating a nuclear deal and not provoke Tehran with new sanctions.
“I hope they will come to see the wisdom of leaving us the equilibrium for a few months to be able to proceed without sending messages that might be misinterpreted and cause miscalculations,” Kerry said.
In the House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said in Washington that pressure on Tehran should be stepped up.
“This seven-month extension should be used to tighten the economic vice on Tehran - already suffering from falling energy prices - to force the concessions that Iran has been resisting,” the Republican said.
While negotiations proceed over the coming months, the confidence-building steps agreed one year ago in Geneva will continue to be implemented, ministers said in Vienna.
This means that Iran will not expand its nuclear activities, while some Western sanctions will remain suspended.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that by extending the Geneva interim deal, Tehran will continue to receive some 700 million dollars of oil revenues per month that had previously been frozen because of sanctions.
Diplomatic efforts to solve the Iranian nuclear issue began 12 years ago, when an Iranian exile opposition group revealed that Iran had been secretly building nuclear facilities that could be used for making nuclear weapons.
The six powers are especially concerned over Iran's uranium enrichment plants and a reactor that produces plutonium as a side-product, because both enriched uranium and plutonium can be used to fuel nuclear weapons.
Tehran's leaders deny any nuclear weapons aims and stress that they are only pursuing energy, science and other peaceful uses of nuclear technology. - Sapa-dpa