NCRI – Chances for reaching a deal with the Iranian regime on its nuclear program before a November 24 deadline is highly unlikely, a Western diplomat close to negotiations said on Monday.
“There are four-and-a-half weeks left to conclude a definitive pact. We are hoping for that but the chances are very slim,” the diplomat said, according to Agence France Press reporting from Paris.
“The ball is in Iran’s court” and Tehran would have to make “significant gestures,” the diplomat added.
The six powers in the talks with Iran — Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany, known as the P5+1 — have set November 24 as the deadline for a comprehensive deal.
The diplomat said the divisions between two sides remained great.
US Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has spoken of “a forest of distrust” between the West and the Iranian regime.
The Iranian regime is publicly repudiating the basis of any deal that would be acceptable to the world powers, which would require dismantling of its nuclear weapons program.
Responding to comments by Wendy Sherman, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, a member of the nuclear talks team said Saturday the Iranian regime will not accept any “backward steps” on its nuclear program, specifically on the enrichment of uranium.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) revealed on October 8 that the Iranian regime has moved a nuclear weaponisation and research and planning center to avoid detection by the United Nations nuclear watchdog.
It was the NCRI that exposed the Iranian regime’s clandestine uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy water facility at Arak in 2002. After this revelation the Iranian regime acknowledged having an enrichment program.
According to the information from sources inside Iran, the Iranian regime has moved the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND) in July to a secure site in a defense ministry complex about 1.5 km (1 mile) from its former location.
To divert attention from key elements of the center the Iranian regime has left “non-sensitive” sections at the old site.
