Negotiations are set to resume next week, only five days before deadline for agreement

Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme will adjourn in Lausanne amid disagreements between the US and France over a common negotiating position with Tehran, according to diplomats at the talks.

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, is due to meet his counterparts from the UK, France and Germany on Saturday, somewhere in Europe, to try to mend the rift – largely over the lifting of sanctions on Iran – and restore a united front. On Friday night, Barack Obama spoke by telephone to François Hollande about the talks.

The talks with Iran are due to resume in Switzerland on Wednesday, which would leave just five days before a deadline for reaching a framework agreement.

“We’ve had a series of intensive discussions with Iran this week, and given where we are in the negotiations, it’s an important time for high-level consultations with our partners in these talks,” US spokeswoman Marie Harf said. “Therefore, Secretary Kerry will travel tomorrow to meet in Europe with German foreign minister Steinmeier, British foreign secretary Hammond, and French foreign minister Fabius to discuss the ongoing … discussions with Iran.”

Meanwhile, Republicans in the US Congress have also not given up their fight to block any agreement they believe is too lenient by refusing to lift certain sanctions.

Despite criticising more hawkish Senate colleagues who sent a warning letter to Iran, foreign affairs chairman Bob Corker predicted on Friday that he will still be able to assemble enough support from Democrats to pass legislation forcing Obama to consult Congress.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif leaves the Lausanne talks. Photograph: Laurent Gillieron/AP

The official reason for the adjournment is the need for members of Iranian delegation to attend the funeral on Sunday of President Hassan Rouhani’s mother, who died on Friday aged 90. But the talks had already stalled because of differences over sanctions, and the emergence of splits within the group of six major powers on how tough a position to take.



The sharpest split is between the US, which had proposed a scheme for a phased lifting of UN sanctions in return for concrete Iranian actions to limit its nuclear programme, and France, which wants to offer only a symbolic easing of the punitive measures imposed over the past decade.

Diplomats say the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, telephoned the French delegation in Lausanne to ensure it did not make further concessions, and to insist that the bulk of UN sanctions could only be lifted if Iran gave a full explanation of evidence suggesting it may have done development work on nuclear warhead design in the past.



“We have been negotiating with Iran for 12 [years]. We shouldn’t be rushed into an agreement which will have to be comprehensive,” the French ambassador to Washington, Gerard Araud, tweeted during the talks. “For France, any agreement to be acceptable will have to give concrete guarantees on all issues. We won’t bypass any of them.”

The French position is unacceptable to the Iranians, who argue they would never be able to prove a negative, and disprove evidence of a weapons programme they say is forged.

“They don’t like it. They say it’s a deal-breaker. They don’t want it at all,” said a European diplomat involved in the talks. But the diplomat added there was “no way” France would relax its position.

The US offer on sanctions is to lift UN sanctions in layers in return each “irreversible” step Iran makes to scale down and limit its nuclear programme. There would be mechanisms in place by which sanctions would “spring back” if Iran violated the agreement, without the need for consensus in the UN security council. It is broadly supported by the UK and Germany, while Russia and China, the other members of the six-nation group, would offer more generous terms.



Tehran is reluctant to accept sanctions relief based on milestones, but diplomats say the French position would be a complete deal-breaker. They say the Iranians would be very unlikely to admit past weapons work, which if revealed would demonstrate that the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had misled the world. Better, US diplomats argue, to focus on limiting the current Iranian programme and worry about allegations about the past a few years down the road.

US and French officials have also clashed in Lausanne over contrasting briefings their delegations have provided to the press.



“Either there are real differences between the American and French positions or the French are posturing here in a way that is not helpful. So this meeting on Saturday will be helpful if it lets the Americans and French settle their differences,” said Reza Marashi, the research director at the National Iranian American Council.



“Either the French are going to have to budge or the Americans are. But if the Americans budge that increases the likelihood that the Iranians are not going to be able to get to yes as an answer.



President Obama called his French counterpart, Hollande, on Friday afternoon to discuss the talks, the White House said. According to a statement, the presidents “reaffirmed their commitment to achieving a long term comprehensive deal that fully and verifiably addresses the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, while noting that Iran must take steps to resolve several remaining issues.”

Kerry went to pay personal condolences to the president’s brother, Hossein Fereydoun, who had been attending the negotiations on the shores of Lake Geneva, but the gesture did not overcome the downbeat atmosphere overhanging the negotiations 11 days before a deadline to produce a framework agreement.

Overnight, Obama issued a message marking the Iranian new year, Nowruz, saying: “We have the best opportunity in decades to pursue a different future between our countries.” But he added that it was up to Iran’s leaders to choose between two paths.

“If they cannot agree to a reasonable deal, they will keep Iran on the path it’s on today – a path that has isolated Iran, and the Iranian people, from so much of the world,” Obama said. “On the other hand, if Iran’s leaders can agree to a reasonable deal, it can lead to a better path – the path of greater opportunities for the Iranian people.”

Zarif quickly tweeted a riposte, saying it was the west that had to make the hard choices necessary for an deal. “Iranians have already made their choice: Engage with dignity. It’s high time for the US and its allies to chose: pressure or agreement,” he said.

The latest session in the 18 months of negotations had begun hopefully. The central issue of Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity had been largely settled. Over the lifetime of a decade-long arrangement, it would have operating capacity equivalent to 6,000 of its current model centrifuges, a 40% reduction.

However, that left unresolved what Iran would get in return. The EU is offering to lift its oil embargo and Iran’s exclusion from Swift electronic banking, while Obama is offering to suspend US congressional sanctions by presidential waiver. However, the Iranians see UN sanctions as crucial, because they declare the country’s nuclear programme to illegal and therefore justify all the other sanctions.

“They consider it insulting and unfair that they would stay on the agenda of the security council, saying Iran is a threat to international peace and security,” a European negotiator said. “They say if we have a deal, we are not a threat any more.”

The White House also still has an uphill battle back in Washington too. Administration officials insisted on Thursday it would refuse to sign any bill requiring Congressional approval of the deal, but senator Corker now claims he would be able to assemble a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate to override such a presidential veto.

“I believe, in spite of some of the drama we have had over the last two weeks internally, we will have a veto proof majority to make that happen,” he told of meeting of Republican lawyers.

“Some of my senator friends are being lobbied heavily by the administration but this is the sort of role that Congress should be playing,” added the Tennessee senator, who says he pushed back a planned vote until after the deadline for the Geneva talks to bring more Democrats on board.

Speaking after his remarks on Friday, Corker acknowledged only certain US sanctions would be affected by Congressional disapproval but insisted this would remain a significant blow to any deal that fell short of what lawmakers felt was necessary.

‘We have got to have other countries involved for us to be most effective, but I still think the United States not being part of a deal going forward would have significant impact,” he told The Guardian.