Washington---US Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Vienna on Friday for what is set to be a final push to seal historic, marathon talks to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The announcement fires the starting gun on what is meant to be the last phase of a gruelling diplomatic mission which has seen Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif criss-cross the world to negotiate a ground-breaking deal.
Kerry, who is still walking on crutches after breaking his leg late last month, "will travel to Vienna, Austria, on June 26 to participate in the ongoing EU-coordinated P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran," his spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
Iran and the six world powers negotiating the deal known as the P5+1 -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - have set themselves a June 30 deadline to nail down one of the most complicated nuclear non-proliferation treaties ever achieved.
It will end a 12-year standoff between the Islamic republic and the West, which has long accused Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear bomb.
Tehran has denied the charge, insisting its atomic program is for civilian energy purposes only.
"There is the possibility that we can finish this by the deadline or a few days after the deadline," Zarif said earlier this week as he met his British, French and German counterparts in Luxembourg.
In April, Iran and the P5+1 agreed the main outlines of the deal after a bruising rollercoaster round of talks in Lausanne, Switzerland.
After two missed deadlines in July and then November last year, this built on an interim deal struck in Geneva in November 2013 after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was elected.
According to the Lausanne framework, Iran will downsize its nuclear activities, slashing the number of centrifuges enriching uranium, which can be used in nuclear power but also when highly purified for a bomb.
It return Iran wants the lifting of a crippling network of US, EU and UN sanctions which have damaged its economy and barred it from world oil markets.
The powers hope the deal will ensure Iran would need at least a year -- compared with a few months in 2013 -- to produce a bomb's worth of enriched uranium material. Tight UN inspections would give ample notice of any such "breakout."
But Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday restated his red lines for a deal including the immediate lifting of US and UN sanctions on banking and the economy.
AFP
