WASHINGTON – U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Iran on Friday to take “the decisions necessary” to resolve the remaining issues so a framework accord on Tehran’s nuclear program can be reached before Tuesday, the White House said.In a communique, the White House said that Obama and Merkel spoke on the phone about the ongoing negotiations to reach a deal on Iran’s nuclear program before the cutoff date next Tuesday, March 31.
Both leaders “reaffirmed their commitment to achieving a long term comprehensive deal that fully and verifiably ensures that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful,” the White House said.
The final phase of negotiations began Friday in the Swiss city of Lausanne with a new meeting between Iran and the United States, and the talks will grow more intense this weekend with the confirmed presence of several foreign ministers of the P5+1 Group.
The P5+1 Group is made up of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China – plus Germany, but those who have led the negotiations in recent weeks are the delegations of Iran and the U.S.
All have tried for 10 years, and particularly for the last two years, to reach an accord to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful uses, and in exchange, the regime of the ayatollahs would have the economic sanctions lifted that are decimating its economy.
The time for reaching the framework accord ends next Tuesday and, should it be achieved, the following three months will be used to hammer out the technical details in order to finalize the pact by June 30.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday during his daily press conference that Obama receives daily updates on the negotiations with Iran and recalled that reaching an accord is high on his list of priorities
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