The “hegemonial” policies of the United States, and the influence of the Israel lobby, are hindering the nuclear talks with Iran, preventing a comprehensive agreement, American historian and investigative journalist Gareth Porter says.

Representatives from Iran and the P5+1 – the US, Britain, China, France, Russia and plus Germany – along with senior officials of the European Union continue holding successive rounds of talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne to narrow the differences on Tehran’s nuclear activities.

The two sides have actually missed a March 31 deadline for reaching a mutual understanding on whether they could continue further talks on Tehran’s civilian nuclear program.

The potential agreement paves the way for a much broader deal before July 1 which guarantees civilian nature of Iran’s nuclear work in return for a promise by international powers to lift illegal sanctions imposed on the country.

However, a senior Iranian negotiator says any deal with the P5+1 group of world powers on Tehran’s nuclear program should guarantee removal of all sanctions.

Top diplomats of Iran, the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany waiting to start a meeting at the Beau Rivage Palace Hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland, March 31, 2015. (AFP photo)

Commenting to Press TV on Wednesday, Gareth Porter said, “The problem of lifting the sanctions against Iran which I’m quite convinced is the most difficult issue for the two sides to compromise on.”

“On the problem of sanctions, this has both a symbolic character on both sides, symbolizing the status that Iran has had in over these years are being subject to the policies of the United States in particular in a way that seems to suggest that there’s a big power, small power relationship, a hegemonial power relationship between the United States and Iran,” said Porter, an author and policy analyst specializing in US national security policy.

“That is one of the reasons that the United States is having trouble giving that [sanctions] up,” said the author of the Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.

“The other part of it is that [there is] pressure from the Israelis and their millions [of dollars] in Washington, DC,” he added. “They have insisted that the United States keep the architecture of sanctions in place until the end of the ten-year period, the duration of this agreement that is being negotiated.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry (2nd R) walks while taking a break during an extended round of talks on April 1, 2015 in Lausanne, Switzerland. (AFP photo)

In his article, titled “Sanctions and the Fate of the Nuclear Talks,” published on Friday, Porter said, “The Obama administration won’t get the signed agreement that it is seeking with the quantitative limits to which Iran has agreed if a detailed agreement on lifting sanctions has not reached as well.”

“And that won’t happen unless the P5+1 makes an extraordinary climb-down from its starting position on the issue,” he wrote.

AHT/GJH