[NY Times] Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
planned to fly to Geneva on Friday to join the talks on imposing a temporary freeze on Iran's nuclear program, a sign that the negotiations are edging close to an agreement.
Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement that Mr. Kerry had decided to go after having consulted with Catherine Ashton, the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
's top foreign policy official and lead negotiator for the big powers in the talks with Iran.
Ms. Psaki said his goal was to "help narrow the differences and move closer to an agreement."
The aim of the accord is to halt much of Iran's nuclear program for six months so negotiators have time to pursue a more comprehensive accord.
The current round of negotiations began on Wednesday amid heightened expectations that the interim accord would be sealed this week.
The top diplomats from the six world powers that are negotiating with Iran--the United States, La Belle France, Britannia, Russia, China and Germany--had been expected to go to Geneva if an accord appeared to be at hand and their involvement was needed to push it over the finish line.
Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, was the first to go to Geneva and arrived Friday afternoon.
Earlier on Friday, Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said that a major stumbling block involved what constraints to impose on Iran's effort to build a heavy water reactor near the town of Arak that would produce plutonium.
"We still disagree on three or four points, the most important of which seems to be the heavy-water reactor in Arak," Mr. Zarif said, according to Tasnim, an Iranian news agency.
A senior European diplomat also said this afternoon that Arak was a sticking point and that some issues also remained pertaining to enrichment.
"They made some good progress this afternoon but not enough to guarantee a deal," the European official said. "There are many options on the table for the Iranians that would allow them to claim a measure of victory. The issue is do the Iranians feel that at home this looks all right."