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 Officials from Iran and the six countries had cautioned ahead of
the talks in New York that a breakthrough was unlikely to end
sanctions on Tehran, although they had hoped substantial progress
could be made in narrowing disagreements.
A senior State Department official said gaps "are still serious"
with just eight weeks to go before a Nov. 24 deadline.
"We do not have an understanding on all major issues, we have some
understandings that are helpful to move this process forward and we
have an enormous number of details still to work through," the
official told reporters.
"We still have some very, very difficult understandings yet to
reach, and everyone has to make difficult decisions and we continue
to look to Iran to make some of the ones necessary for getting to a
comprehensive agreement," said the official, speaking on condition
of anonymity.
Another diplomat said Iran and the United States, Britain, France,
Germany, Russia and China would likely meet again in the coming
weeks, but no date and venue have been set.
Iran President Hassan Rouhani said at a news conference on in New
York that the "progress we have witnessed in recent days has been
extremely slow."
"We must look forward to the future and make the courageous
decisions vis-a-vis this problem," he said, adding that any deal
without lifting all sanctions against Tehran was "unacceptable."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters that an interim
deal approved in Geneva last November under which Iran had halted
higher-level enrichment in exchange for limited sanctions relief
"has made the world safer."
On a long-term deal, Kerry said "it remains our fervent hope that
Iran" and the six powers "can in the next weeks come to an agreement
that would benefit the world."
Iran and the six hope that a resolution of the more-than-decade-long
nuclear standoff with Iran will reduce regional tensions and remove
the risk of another war in the Middle East.
At the General Assembly earlier in the week, Rouhani said a deal
that ends sanctions will open the door to deeper cooperation on
regional peace and stability and the fight against militants such as
Islamic State, a group that has seized parts of Iraq and Syria. The
United States has made clear it will not link the two issues.
Israel has repeatedly threatened to use military force against
Iranian atomic sites if diplomacy fails to defuse what it sees as
the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.
 Iran rejects allegations from Western powers and their allies that
it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability but has refused to halt
uranium enrichment, inviting multiple rounds of U.S., European Union
and U.N. Security Council sanctions. Enrichment is a process of
purifying uranium for use as fuel for power plants or, if enriched
to a very high purity, for bombs. MISTRUST
Senior foreign ministry officials from the six countries and Iran
began meeting in New York last week. Despite a generally positive
atmosphere in the negotiations, the Western diplomat said neither
side has much confidence in the other.
"The level of mistrust is still pretty high," the Western diplomat
said.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters there had been
"no significant advances" in the latest talks, prompting the parties
to cancel a scheduled negotiating session on Friday.
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Kerry and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met
with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif late on Thursday
and again on Friday to discuss next steps in the deadlocked
negotiations, the Western diplomat said. In addition to
enrichment, diplomats said the speed of lifting sanctions is a
difficult issue, one on which Iranian and Western delegations have
sharp differences.
The Western diplomat said the United States and Europeans were
prepared to lift their unilateral sanctions very quickly in the
event of an acceptable agreement, but U.N. measures would be ended
gradually based on Iran's compliance with any future deal.
"What they would like to see is to get rid of the Security Council
sanctions very quickly, immediately," he said. "But this is not
exactly how we think." He added, however, that Iran was
underestimating the speed at which the Western powers were prepared
to move on sanctions relief if an agreement is reached.
The diplomat said Iran's President Rouhani, who held bilateral
meetings with top European officials in New York, had nothing to
offer to move the talks forward.
"There was nothing really new from him," the diplomat said. "He said
we should not miss this historic opportunity over a couple of
centrifuges. And by the way, we think the same way."
Iran's enrichment program, above all the number of enrichment
centrifuges Tehran would be permitted to keep for the duration of
any deal, is one of the major sticking points.
Rouhani, widely seen as a pragmatist, was elected last year on a
platform of improving foreign relations. Rouhani and his government
have adopted a more conciliatory stance compared to his hard-line
predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, raising hopes there might be
avenues to reach an agreement.
The head of the U.S. delegation, Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, said in an interview with Voice of
America that "I believe we are making progress." But she added that
there are "still some very crucial decisions that need to be made."
The Western diplomat echoed those remarks, saying: "We are expecting
significant moves on the Iranian side" if there is to be an
agreement over the next two months.
(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Lesley Wroughton;
Editing by Grant McCool, Jonathan Oatis and Nick Macfie)
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