US’s Kerry says not in rush to get Iran nuclear deal

“We are here because we believe we are making real progress toward a comprehensive deal”, Mr. Kerry told reporters outside the Coburg Palais hotel in Vienna.

Kerry emphasized that progress has been made in the talks but tough issues still remained unresolved.

Talks are now in their fourteenth straight day. “It’s like we’re doing five bilateral negotiations”, the official said.

However, Kerry said Washington’s patience was not unlimited.

This was rammed home by a second diplomat, who said the new target date – the latest in a string of postponements in nearly two years of talks seeking to end a 13-year standoff – is the “final” one.

Since the start of June, the team has gone through at least 10 pounds (4.54 kg) of strawberry Twizzlers liquorice, 30 pounds (13.61 kg) of mixed nuts and dried fruit, 20 pounds (9.07 kg) of string cheese, 200 Rice Krispies treats (a mix of marshmallow, rice cereal and butter) and, on Monday alone, three liters of Zanoni & Zanoni gelato to celebrate a delegation birthday. “We also recognized that we shouldn’t get up and leave simply because the clock strikes midnight….Given that the work here is incredibly technical and that the stakes are very, very high, we will not rush and we will not be rushed”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif did not directly address the press, but said in a message of Twitter that he would not “rush” to get the job done.

The latest round of talks follows some 20 months of convoluted closed-door negotiations that have capped more than a decade of brinkmanship between Tehran and the West.

But if a deal is not reached by 6:00 a.m.in Vienna (0400 GMT), the skeptical Republican-led USA Congress will have 60 days rather than 30 days to review it, extra time the administration of President Barack Obama worries could create new chances to derail it.

A senior Israeli government official charged Thursday that the sextet’s overly conciliatory stance in the talks would nearly guarantee “that the world will face a nuclear-armed terrorist state, which will receive a cash bonanza of hundreds of billions of dollars to fund its aggression and terror”.

The official also said that Iran was looking forward to seeing whether the United States would “abandon its obsession with sanctions“. Officials haven’t ruled out that it might be extended again if there’s no deal by the end of Friday.

The last time Obama held a secure conference call with his negotiators on the road was shortly before the framework for a final accord was reached on April 2 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said it was possible there would be an agreement in the coming hours. “The arms embargo on Iran must be one of the first sanctions to be lifted …”

When to lift United Nations arms trade bans is also among the most hard elements of the treaty, since such a step would allow Tehran to export weapons to countries in the volatile region.

The worldwide Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said it has credible indications that Iran conducted various projects in the past aimed at building a nuclear missile, based on Western intelligence findings and other evidence collected by the Vienna-based agency.