Iran Nuclear Deal May Be About to Happen

After more than a fortnight of intense negotiations in Vienna, representatives from the P5+1 multinational coalition who have been meeting with officials from Tehran to try to reach a deal with Iran over its nuclear program seemed close to reaching a conclusion Sunday.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the diplomats finished their closed-door session as reports spread that an agreement could be announced Monday:

After 16 days of bargaining, top officials from the United States and five other world powers that have been negotiating with Iran met Sunday evening for a working dinner that lasted just over three hours. Before the meeting, diplomats said the foreign ministers were aiming to nail down the precise language of the agreement and of the United Nations Security Council resolution that will lay out its terms.

The head of Iran’s nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, was quoted by an Iranian news agency as saying that “technical discussions are almost over, and the text regarding the technical issues with their annexes is almost finished.”

Earlier in the day, diplomats said that if negotiators completed their work here, the lengthy final text of the deal would be sent to Washington and Tehran for a final review, with the expectation that the terms would be publicly revealed Monday, unless the talks hit a snag.

The paper added that one of the tipoffs that the talks could be yielding real results was the arrival Sunday in Vienna of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who had been staying out of that power huddle unless and until the negotiations took a definitive turn.

–Posted by Kasia Anderson