U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to return to the negotiating table on Friday for another round of nuclear talks with Iran.
“Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Vienna, Austria on June 26 to participate in the ongoing EU-coordinated P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran,” spokesperson John Kirby said in a statement Thursday.
The delegation led by the U.S. includes Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia.
The six world powers are trying to reach an agreement with Tehran that would allow spot inspections of all Iranian nuclear facilities by United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors.
Under the agreement Iran would halt its uranium enrichment and nuclear technology development for the next ten years, in exchange for the UN lifting the crippling sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic.
Thus far, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has nixed the terms of the deal, despite an offer from the delegation to provide everything Iran needs to produce peaceful nuclear energy, which Iran claims is all it seeks.
Among the items being offered are “high-tech light-water nuclear reactors and other state-of-the-art nuclear equipment,” according to a secret eight-page document obtained earlier this week and revealed exclusively by The Associated Press. Dated June 19 and entitled “Civil Nuclear Cooperation,” the report appears to call Iran’s bluff – but as Omri Ceren of The Israel Project noted in a response brief, it’s not that simple.
“Some country in the P5+1 will be helping the Iranians develop next generation centrifuges in a facility impenetrable to American and Israeli bombs,” Ceren contended. He added that “any country that wants to sabotage that development will be unable to do so, because the program will be protected and maintained by a major power.”
Although the centrifuges will be spinning non-nuclear elements during the course of the ten-year agreement, they will be primed and ready to enrich nuclear fuel the moment the agreement ends.
“The international community will literally be investing in helping Iran achieve a zero breakout,” Ceren warned.
The negotiations, which have already been extended twice before, are scheduled to conclude on June 30.