Iran nuclear talks get down to business

Nuclear negotiators from Iran and six world powers got down to business Tuesday seeking to strike a momentous deal before a July 20 deadline but with significant differences still to bridge.
On Monday the United States and Iran briefly discussed the crisis raging in Iraq, US officials said, but the focus in Vienna on the second day of talks was the mooted atomic agreement.
The hugely complex accord would see the Islamic republic scale down its nuclear programme to ease concerns that it wants atomic weapons -- something Iran has long denied.  
In return Iran is demanding a lifting of all UN and Western sanctions that are hitting its vital oil exports, clogging up its financial system and causing major economic problems.
Such a deal is aimed at resolving one of the trickiest geopolitical problems of the 21st century after a decade of rising tensions, threats of war -- and of nuclear expansion by Tehran.
"The negotiations have already intensified, as we said that they would, and they will continue to do so in the days and weeks leading up to July 20," a senior US official in Vienna said Monday.
She added however that there are "still significant gaps... and we don't have illusions about how hard it will be to close those gaps, though we do see ways to do so".
- Thorny issues -
The many problem areas include the duration of any final accord, the pace of sanctions relief, Iran's partially-built Arak nuclear reactor and allegations of past efforts to build a bomb.
But the main sticking point remains, as it has been for years, uranium enrichment: a process that can produce nuclear fuel but also, when highly purified, the core of an atomic bomb.
The West hotly disputes Iran's claim that it needs this material for nuclear facilities around the country, saying it only has one power plant -- fuelled by Russia -- and that others are years, if not decades, from completion.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said last week that Iran should slash the number of centrifuges, machines that enrich by spinning uranium gas at supersonic speeds, to "several hundred".
But Iran, which has 20,000 centrifuges, 10,000 of them spinning, is believed to want to massively increase its capacities. It is also developing newer, faster machines.
"We are not even in the same ballpark," said Fabius.
- Tick tock -
The parties have set themselves a deadline of July 20, when an interim deal struck in November expires, and many experts believe an extension is already being talked about.
The senior US official denied any such discussion, however, indicating that some progress was made in one-on-one talks with Iran in Geneva last week.
"We not only understood each other better after those two days, but I think we both can see places where we might be able to close those gaps," she said.
She added that a "little bit" of drafting the deal began at the last multi-party talks in May, and that this would continue this week, a hope echoed by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Monday's discussion of Iraq showed how unsettled old foes Washington and Tehran both are by a major insurgency by Sunni militants overrunning swathes of Iran's neighbour.
Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said the Iraq crisis "adds urgency" to securing a nuclear deal because it would make it easier to "explore regional areas of mutual interest".
But whether any sharing of interests or even US-Iranian cooperation in Iraq could actually help get a nuclear agreement remains to be seen.
"I expect tactical cooperation over Iraq to have as much impact on the nuclear talks as the tactical disagreement over Syria," Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group told AFP.
"Which means not much."