A day after missing deal deadline, Iran nuclear talks resume

Iran nuclear negotiators resumed talks here today, just hours after abandoning a March 31 deadline to reach the outline of a deal and agreeing to press on.
However, as the discussions dragged on, three of the six foreign ministers involved left the talks, and prospects for agreement remained uncertain.
Claiming enough progress had been made to warrant an extension after six days of intense bartering and eager to avoid a collapse in the discussions, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his British and German counterparts huddled with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif in the Swiss town of Lausanne to continue a marathon effort to bridge still significant gaps and hammer out details of a framework accord.

The foreign ministers of China, France and Russia all departed Lausanne overnight, although the significance of their absence was not clear.
The remaining ministers and the Chinese, French and Russian officials left behind are looking to reach understandings that would form the basis for a comprehensive agreement to be reached by the end of June.
After the talks last broke in the early hours of today, Zarif said solutions to many of the problems had been found and that documents attesting to that would soon be drafted.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said before leaving that the negotiators had reached agreement in principle on all key issues, and in the coming hours it will be put on paper. But other officials were more skeptical.

Asked how high the chances of success were, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: "I cannot say." And British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Iran might still not be ready to accept what is on the table.
"I'm optimistic that we will make further progress this morning but it does mean the Iranians being willing to meet us where there are still issues to deal with," Hammond told British reporters. "Fingers crossed and we'll hope to get there during the course of the day."
Although the Chinese, French and Russian ministers left their deputies in charge, Kerry postponed his planned Tuesday departure to stay in Lausanne, and an Iranian negotiator said his team would stay "as long as necessary" to clear the remaining hurdles.

Officials say their intention is to produce a joint statement outlining general political commitments to resolving concerns about Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, and their intention to begin a new phase of negotiations to get to that point. In addition, they are trying to fashion other documents that would lay out in more detail the steps they must take by June 30 to meet those goals.