Iran deal may be imminent

By Michael Crowley

Diplomats say `provisional’ deal is near completion with announcement possible Monday.

Negotiators from the United States, Iran and five other nations neared a deal Sunday on an accord that would lift some international sanctions on Iran in return for stiff curbs on its nuclear program.
A provisional deal could be reached as early as Sunday with a formal announcement on Monday, according to the Associated Press, citing diplomats involved with the talks in Vienna.

The State Department would not confirm the reports and an Iranian official told POLITICO that a deal was not imminent.
“We are working hard, but a deal tonight is simply logistically impossible,” the Iranian government official said. “This is a 100 page document, after all.”
Other top officials sounded optimistic in their public comments Sunday. “I think we’re getting to some real decisions,” Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Sunday, without commenting more specifically on timing. “So I will say, because we have a few tough things to do, I remain hopeful. Hopeful.”
France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, sounded a similar note. “I hope, I hope, that we are finally entering the final phase of this marathon negotiation,” Fabius told Reuters upon his return to Vienna from a meeting on the Greek financial crisis in Paris.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who had departed Vienna, is headed back to rejoin the talks, Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced on Twitter.
A senior State Department official declined to confirm that an agreement could come as soon as Sunday.
“We have never speculated about the timing of anything during these negotiations, and we’re certainly not going to start now — especially given the fact that major issues remain to be resolved in these talks,” the official said.
The nuclear talks between the U.S., Britain, China, France, Russia, Germany and Iran have hit several roadblocks in recent days, including a dispute over whether the United Nations must fully lift an arms embargo on Tehran as part of any deal.
A preliminary framework laying the ground for a comprehensive deal was reached in April. The current stage of negotiations was aimed at hammering out the technical details, including how and in what order sanctions might be lifted.