Foreign ministers to join troubled Iran nuke talks

VIENNA — Big-power foreign ministers are joining Iran nuclear talks on a diplomatic rescue mission. But even their muscle is seen as unlikely to bridge differences on Tehran’s atomic activities in time to meet the July 20 target date for a deal.

“Obviously both sides have set out positions that are irreconcilable,” says Gary Samore, who left the US team negotiating with Iran last year. “That’s why this negotiation is not going to end in agreement.”

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius alluded to the impasse this week, saying “none of the big points” had been settled. He said “the near totality” of a draft agreement that is being laboriously worked on consists of blanks. And in comments published Thursday by Austria’s Wiener Zeitung, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that agreement was far from certain.

Two diplomats who are familiar with the confidential talks said Thursday that US Secretary of State John Kerry and the top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany were tentatively scheduled to arrive in Vienna starting Saturday. They said Russia’s foreign minister and a high foreign ministry official from China could also fly in.

Deep divisions persist over uranium enrichment, which can produce both reactor fuel or fissile warhead cores. The US wants deep cuts in the program. Instead, Tehran has gone public with demands that it be allowed to hugely expand it.

Iran insists it does not want nuclear arms. The big powers fear that its array of more than 9,000 centrifuges enriching uranium and about 10,000 on standby already gives it the ability to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one weapon in three or four months. They argue that — with Russia providing fuel for its power reactor and ready to do so for future ones — it has no need for so many machines.