A flurry of diplomatic activity in Iran nuclear talks

He’ll later talk to chief European Union diplomat Federica Mogherini and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

“Not at breakthrough moment yet”, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond tweeted.

He added that they were “faced with some important and sensitive issues which no one can shy away from”.

ABC reports that any final deal must be submitted to the US Congress by July 9th.

But the Iranian official said that ability goes two ways.

Obama administration officials insisted that despite Iran’s failure to meet its obligations, negotiations were still on track and that Tehran would face no repercussions.

The negotiators missed a Tuesday deadline for a final agreement and have given themselves another week, until July 7. Both face scepticism from powerful hardliners at home in countries that have been enemies since Iranian revolutionaries stormed the USA Embassy in Tehran in 1979. “The positions set out by Khamenei last week make it more hard to bridge the gaps in the next few days and there is still work to be done”.

“But we believe we’re making progress and we’re going to continue to work because of that”, he told reporters.

The USA announced early this week that all participants had agreed to extend the measures built into an interim nuclear agreement signed in November 2013-including modest sanctions relief for Iran and steps by Tehran to freeze their nuclear activities.

It would end a 13-year stand-off over Iran’s suspect nuclear programme, and draw the curtain on nearly two years of intense negotiations which resumed in earnest after Rouhani came to power in August 2013.

Representatives from Iran and the P5+1 group are working together in the Austrian capital, Vienna, to finalize the text of a possible deal over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

While President Obama said a verifiable agreement is the best way to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, though critics – including Republican presidential candidates – are prepared to pounce.

An IAEA probe of allegations that Iran worked secretly on nuclear arms has been essentially stalemated for almost a decade, with Iran dismissing them as phony evidence planted by the US and Israel.

In a statement, the IAEA said the talks were expected to focus on addressing “ongoing cooperation” between the nuclear watchdog and Iran and how to “accelerate the resolution of all outstanding issues related to Iran’s nuclear program”.