Brussels, 06/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 6 July, the foreign ministers of the E3+3 (Germany, France, United Kingdom and China, United States, Russia), their Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, and High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini met again in Vienna to try and find an agreement on the Iranian nuclear programme. On 30 June, the freeze on sanctions on Iran was extended until 7 July (see EUROPE 11347).
During the evening of Sunday 5 July, Mogherini spoke to Zarif. A meeting between all the E3+3 ministers and Mogherini was held on the morning of Monday 6 July. On arriving in Vienna on 5 July (for the third time in 10 days), Mogherini stated that over the course of the following “two” days the ministers were expected to check and assess if agreement could be found. She said that the deadline remained set at 7 July and they were “very close” to an agreement. The Western countries have repeated on several occasions that as long as there is no agreement on everything, there will be agreement on nothing. “It's a matter of seeing all together if this political will manages to translate into political decisions that might be hard, might be difficult”, Mogherini added. US Secretary of State John Kerry said that although there had been “genuine progress in the last few days”, “we're not where we need to be on several difficult issues”.
According to the Iranian negotiator, Abbas Araghchi, the experts and diplomats have put together a 20-page document, with five annexes, so that there are 70-80 pages in total. “It's for the ministers to make the last difficult choices”, an Iranian official said on 6 July. The negotiation teams are working relentlessly to try to settle as many issues as possible at their level. “We have made good progress on nearly all the issues, but there are still a small number to be resolved”, he added, anonymously, as quoted by French news agency AFP. For months now, the sticking points have been the length of the agreement, the ways and scope of the inspections and the pace at which the sanctions will be lifted. On the latter issue a compromise has reportedly been reached, according to several diplomatic sources quoted by AFP. (Camille-Cerise Gessant)