Kerry said Tuesday there was still hard work to be done but that a deal remains achievable. He said: “I don’t believe it’s out of reach, but we have some tough issues to resolve.”
“We need to continue to have some serious discussions, which we will, and we’ll see where we are,” he said.
“I don’t think anything is served by a lot of speculation at this point in time.”
A one-day meeting involving the Iranian regime and all six powers was scheduled for Thursday.
The Iranian regime’s foreign minister warned Tuesday of “numerous” gaps in troubled nuclear talks with world powers.
Mohammad Javad Zarif said there was “general agreement” but that “numerous questions still need to be resolved”.
Russia’s Lavrov said Tuesday in Paris that the November deadline was not “sacred”.
“We aspire to get a result by that date but I am convinced by the principle that it is not artificially-set deadlines but the essence of the deal, the quality of the deal (that counts),” Lavrov said, according to Interfax.
Last November, the two sides agreed an interim deal and set a July 20 target to agree a lasting accord, but after several rounds of intensive negotiations the deadline was extended to November 24.
Although some progress appears to have been made on changing the design of a new reactor at Arak so that it produces less weapons-grade plutonium, as well as on enhanced UN inspections and on the fortified Fordo facility, the main bone of contention remains the Iranian regime’s enrichment capacity.
Other problem areas include the pace at which sanctions would be lifted, the time frame that an accord would cover and a troubled UN probe into past suspect “military dimensions” of Iran’s activities.
The UN nuclear watchdog failed in talks with the Iranian regime last week to substantively advance a dragging investigation into the military dimension of mullahs’ nuclear program.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement after the Oct. 7-8 meeting in Tehran that “the two sides held discussions in relation to the implementation of the two practical measures relating to the initiation of high explosives and to neutron transport calculations.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency said: “Iran did not propose any new measures during the meetings in Tehran.
Also it was known last week that the Iranian regime had stonewalled the agency’s investigation by refusing to issue entry visa for the third time for one member of United Nation’s nuclear watchdog that visited Tehran August 31 to try to investigate military dimensions of the regime’s nuclear program.