German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said the Iranian regime needs to help build trust and that a monitoring program will be needed to ensure it complies with a nuclear agreement it is negotiating with six world powers.
“Trust has been destroyed on the part of Iran. For this reason, Iran above all has to now offer input to help build up trust,” Steinmeier said an interview with German broadcaster ARD on Tuesday.
“This means that we have to have monitoring possibilities available to have an overview as to whether Iran is fulfilling its obligations. We need to be sure that we have transparency concerning the promises Iran is making here.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry is staying at the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna, and so is the Iranian regime’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. But foreign ministers of the five other nations at the negotiating table are leaving or have already left, reflecting a rough slog ahead for a deal, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
All seven ministers had come to Vienna over the past few days in the hope that their added diplomatic weight would clinch an agreement. But they decided to leave after talks busted through a second extension on Tuesday, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying the sides were still apart over nearly 10 issues.
The new tentative target date for a deal now is Friday. The U.S., backed by Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, want long-term curbs on the Iranian regime’s nuclear program, offering Tehran sanctions relief in return.