France’s ambassador to Washington said Tuesday it was unlikely a final nuclear agreement with Iran will be reached by the June 30 deadline.
Since the issues involved are so technical and complicated, “it’s very likely that we won’t have an agreement before the end of June, or even after June,” Gerard Araud said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington.
“The Iranians for the moment are obviously not negotiating to get an agreement very shortly.”
He predicted that toward the end of June there would be “a sort of melodrama,” with “[foreign] ministers not sleeping, doors slammed, you know, ‘I’m leaving to Tehran!’ ‘No way!’ and so on – to try to get the best deal.
Even once a deal is struck – if it is – it would still need to be translated into technical annexes, he added.
“We could have a sort of fuzzy end to the negotiation.”
Later Tuesday, Araud tweeted: “Our goal is to get an agreement by the deadline. Likely that Iran will wait for the last days for compromising, like [it did] in March.”
Throughout the lengthy nuclear talks France has been the most openly skeptical of the negotiating partners.
The talks between Iran and the P5+1 group – the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany – are meant to be confidential, but last week French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius disclosed that the Iranians were pressing to be given 24 days’ notice ahead of any inspection of its nuclear facilities – a far cry from the “snap inspections” nonproliferation experts say are essential for a credible agreement.
The event moderator, Atlantic Council senior fellow Barbara Slavin, asked Araud about the fact the French have spoken out on occasion in that manner.
“Is it helpful to these negotiations to reveal these little bits?” she asked.
“Of course it’s helpful, since it’s my minister,” Araud quipped.
“The French foreign policy is neither more nor less moral and intelligent than the U.S. one,” he said. “So what it means that what we are doing, in a very technical and very political issue, is based on our own analysis. And nuances are legitimate.”
Tuesday’s event brought together the ambassadors to the U.S. from the three European countries involved in the nuclear talks.
British ambassador Peter Westmacott said a great deal of work remained to be done before the end of June, and cautioned that a final agreement was “not yet in the bag and we are all very clear that if we can’t get the right deal then there won’t be a deal.”
After Iran and the P5+1 announced a “framework agreement” at talks in Switzerland on April 2, serious differences emerged between Iran and the U.S. in particular over exactly what had been agreed upon.
The dispute centered on inspections of military sites, which Iran says are off-limits, and the timing of sanctions relief, which Iran says must occur immediately once a final deal is signed.
Asked about the sanctions row, Westmacott said it was clear that “sanctions lift will take place when there is implementation of the agreement.”
“That depends on how long it takes the [International Atomic Energy Agency] to certify that there is full compliance by Iran,” he said. “We don’t know exactly what day that will be.”
The British envoy played down the significance of the dispute.
“Each side is explaining why what it has agreed to so far is a good thing for its own public opinion. That is what negotiations are about – everybody has to return home with something which they are proud of, which they are pleased about,” he said.