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Disputes over missiles and arms embargo hold up Iran talks

06 July 2015 18:00 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A dispute over U.N. sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program and a broader arms embargo were among issues holding up a nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers on Monday, the day before their latest self-imposed deadline, APA reports quoting Reuters.

"The Iranians want the ballistic missile sanctions lifted. They say there is no reason to connect it with the nuclear issue, a view that is difficult to accept," one Western official told Reuters. "There's no appetite for that on our part."

Iranian and other Western officials confirmed this view as the foreign ministers of the six powers - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - gathered in Vienna to try to strike a deal with Iran by Tuesday night.

"The Western side insists that not only should it (ballistic missiles) remain under sanctions, but that Iran should suspend its program as well," an Iranian official said.

"But Iran is insisting on its rights and says all the sanctions, including on the ballistic missiles, should be lifted when the U.N. sanctions are lifted."

Separately, a senior Iranian official told reporters in Vienna on condition of anonymity that Tehran wanted a United Nations arms embargo terminated as well.

The West wants to keep the arms embargo in place and a senior Western diplomat said a removal was "out of the question".

The deal under discussion is aimed at curbing Tehran's most sensitive nuclear work for a decade or more, in exchange for relief from sanctions that have slashed Iran's oil exports and crippled its economy.

The United States and its allies fear Iran is using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Iran says its program is peaceful.

An agreement would be the most important milestone in decades towards alleviating hostility between the United States and Iran, enemies since Iranian revolutionaries captured 52 hostages in the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979.

It could also reduce the odds of any military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, something Washington has refused to rule out, and the possibility of a wider war in the Middle East, where conflicts already rage in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.