Geneva - Tehran rejected a key Western demand for site inspections Saturday as US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart held intense talks to secure a nuclear deal ahead of a looming deadline.
The Geneva talks between Kerry and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in the run-up to the June 30 deadline come amid heightened diplomatic moves to try to end a 12-year standoff and put a nuclear bomb beyond Iran's reach.
Kerry and Zarif huddled for six hours in a leading hotel with their delegations and top European Union official Helga Schmid before ending the discussions.
"Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Zarif, along with their teams, had a thorough and comprehensive discussion of all of the issues today," a senior State Department official said.
"We are committed to working to close the remaining gaps and to staying on the schedule we've set forth to get this done," the official added.
But just before the Geneva talks got underway, senior Iranian nuclear negotiator Abbas Araghchi told state television it would be "out of the question" for UN inspectors to question Iranian scientists and inspect military sites as part of a final nuclear deal with world powers.
Iranian news agencies IRNA and ISNA said lower-level discussions with the United States would resume on Thursday in Vienna, without citing any sources.
After an interim accord struck in Geneva in November 2013, Washington and Tehran are trying to nail the final details of a ground-breaking agreement that would see Iran curtail its nuclear ambitions in return for a lifting of crippling international sanctions.
Sealing a long-elusive deal with the Islamic republic could give US President Barack Obama his biggest foreign policy achievement yet.
After three decades of enmity, it would also pave the way to bringing Iran back into the international fold and create fresh impetus to resolve a host of conflicts in the Middle East.
The Geneva meeting came as the United States and its partners -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- seek to finalise the complex pact.
AFP
