Iran nuclear negotiations have been postponed again until Wednesday, April 1.
This is the third time that the deadline has been postponed past the original self-imposed deadline. The Obama Administration wanted a broad political agreement to be reached by the end of March with an extra three months to hammer out more complex details.
The fact that the discussions are still underway shows that the seven places, Iran, United States, China, Russia, France, Great Britain and Germany, believe that some sort of agreement can be reached.
The Secretary of State, John F. Kelly, announced that he would be extending his stay until Wednesday in hopes of overcoming the hurdles that the talks face.
Marie Harf, the State department’s acting spokeswomen, said, “We’ve made enough progress in the last days to merit staying until Wednesday.” She added, “There are several difficult issues still remaining.”
Iran had agreed to limit its nuclear outputs during the negotiations, but the agreement runs out at the end of June. A White House spokesperson says that the U.S. won’t wait until the June 30 to walk away.
The talks began in 2003 but really didn’t start gaining notability until a decade later in 2013. The negotiations have already come to unsure accord on dozens of issues, though both sides have stated that nothing is truly settled until agreement is met on all matters.
Iran wants to have international sanctions lifted and also be able to use nuclear technology for peaceful civilian purposes to help boost the economy. However, the U.S. and its five partners want to stop Iran from making nuclear weapons for at least a decade and then diminish sanctions in later years.
Iran is looking for the sanctions to be lifted quickly so they can introduce new technology that will allow them to enrich uranium more quickly. The allies are looking for a more gradual reduction and monitoring of Iran’s outdated enriched uranium that is stockpiled in order to keep them from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
