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Arab coalition warplanes bombed rebel camps in Yemen Friday in a second
straight day of strikes led by Saudi Arabia,
which accused Iran of
"aggression" across the region. |
March 28, 2015 - MIDDLE EAST
- The meltdown in Yemen is pushing the Middle East dangerously closer
to the wider regional conflagration many long have feared would arise
from the chaos unleashed by the Arab Spring revolts. What began as a
peaceful struggle to unseat a Yemeni strongman four years ago and then
mutated into civil strife now risks spiraling into a full-blown war
between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran over a country that lies
at the choke point of one of the world’s major oil supply routes.
Arab warplanes pummel Yemen rebels as Hadi meets allies
Arab warplanes pounded Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen for a third night while President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi held summit talks in Egypt Saturday with regional allies seeking to prevent his overthrow
The deeply tribal and impoverished Arabian Peninsula state, on the front line of the US battle against Al-Qaeda, is the scene of the latest emerging proxy struggle between Middle East powers.
An Arab coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-ruled Gulf monarchies, is battling to avoid having a pro-Iran regime on its doorstep, as Shiite Huthi rebels tighten the noose around Hadi's southern stronghold.
Air strikes against the rebels could last up to six months, Gulf diplomatic officials said, voicing fears that they could face retaliation at home by Iran.
Heavy strikes shook the rebel-held capital Sanaa for a third consecutive night until dawn on Saturday, residents said.
"It was an intense night of bombing and the windows shook," said a foreigner working for an international aid organisation in Sanaa.
"People want to leave but there are no flights out of Yemen," she said.
According to an AFP photographer, it was the most violent night of raids heard in the capital since the Saudi-led operation began.
He said the bombing was felt throughout the night until dawn.
The air strikes apparently mainly targeted arms depots and other military facilities outside Sanaa, witnesses said.
Saudi Arabia says more than 10 countries have joined the Arab coalition defending Hadi, who arrived in Egypt on Friday to join allies at a weekend summit, a day after he surfaced in Riyadh.
He went into hiding earlier in the week as rebel forces bore down on his refuge in the main southern city of Aden and a warplane attacked the presidential palace.
- 'Unprecedented' threats -
The
Arab summit, which opened Saturday in the Egyptian resort of Sharm
el-Sheikh, is expected to back the offensive against the rebels and
approve the creation of a joint military force to tackle extremists.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told fellow Arab leaders the region faced "unprecedented" threats.
Saudi
Arabia's King Salman vowed that the military intervention his
government is leading would continue until it brings "security" to the
Yemeni people.
The situation
has become increasingly tense in Aden with rebel forces clashing with
anti-Huthi militiamen in several areas, raising fears that Hadi's last
bastion could fall.
On Friday, at least eight people were killed in fighting around the city's international airport.
Saudi
warships evacuated dozens of foreign diplomats from Aden hours before
the kingdom launched air strikes on the advancing rebels, state
television said Saturday.
The official SPA news agency said that 86 people had been pulled out on Wednesday.
It was only announced after their arrival at a Saudi naval base in Jeddah on Saturday aboard two vessels.
 |
Saudi Brigadier General Ahmed Asiri, spokesman of the Saudi-led
coalition forces, speaks to the media next to a replica of a Tornado
fighter jet,
at the Riyadh airbase in the Saudi capital on March 26,
2014 (AFP Photo/Fayez Nureldine)
|
Saudi
Arabia has vowed to do "whatever it takes" to prevent Hadi's overthrow,
accusing Shiite Iran of backing the attempted takeover by the Huthi
rebels, who have seized swathes of the country.
Hadi called for
the Saudi-led military intervention to continue until Shiite Huthi
rebels surrender and their leaders are brought to justice.
"I call
for this operation to continue until this gang surrenders and withdraws
from all locations it has occupied in every province," he told an the
summit.
But experts say the kingdom will be reluctant to send in ground troops for fear of getting bogged down in a protracted conflict.
- US support -
US President Barack Obama said Washington shared a "collective goal" with its regional ally to see stability in Yemen.
Obama
offered support to King Salman in a phone conversation as it emerged
the US military had rescued two Saudi pilots forced to eject from their
fighter jet over the sea off Yemen after a technical problem.
Amid
the air raids and scattered fighting, a call for a ceasefire was issued
by former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, suspected of being allied with
the rebels.
Dozens of civilians are reported to have been killed in Saudi-led Operation Decisive Storm against the Huthis and their allies.
An
army unit loyal to Saleh, along with Shiite militiamen, captured two
towns in Abyan province to the east of Aden, military sources said.
The rebels have also clashed with Sunni tribes as they push south.
Iran has reacted furiously to the air strikes, calling them a violation of Yemen's sovereignty.
"Any
military action against an independent country is wrong and will only
result in a deepening crisis and more deaths among innocents," Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.
The
conflict has raised a major hurdle to Washington's longstanding drone
war against Al-Qaeda militants who have exploited the power vacuum since
Saleh's downfall in 2012.
Washington has pledged logistical and intelligence support for the Saudi-led campaign. -
Yahoo.
Ousted
Yemeni president calls on his people to stage peaceful protests as
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Sisi endorsed the creation of a joint
military force to defend Arab nations
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Men carry the body of a child they uncovered from rubble of houses destroyed by Saudi airstrikes near Sana Airport in Yemen on March 26.
Hani Mohammed / Associated Press |
Yemen's ousted leader gave an impassioned speech to Arab leaders Saturday and called on his people to stage peaceful protests in opposition to the takeover of the country by Shiite Houthi rebels.
Speaking at the Arab summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, President Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi spoke about "dark forces" influencing his nation.
He branded the Houthi militias the "stooges of Iran" and directly blamed the Islamic Republic for creating chaos in Yemen and forcing him to flee the country.
He described being besieged for more than two months before finally having to leave his hideout in the coastal city of Aden earlier this week as the militias pushed south.
The escalating conflict in Yemen was high on the agenda as Saudi Arabia-led airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen continued for a third night.
The coalition taking part in the attacks believe Iran is providing vital support to the Houthis, a claim Iran and the Houthis deny.
The summit is being attended by representatives from more than 20 Arab countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman said the military operation would not stop until Yemen was stable and secure.
It will continue "until it achieves its goals for the Yemen people to achieve security," he said.
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Sisi endorsed the creation of a joint military force to defend Arab nations.
Sisi said the Arab world was at a critical crossroads and facing unprecedented difficulties.
"The challenges are grave," he told the Arab leaders. "It is a huge responsibility, heavy and burdensome."
Sisi said military action in Yemen was "inevitable."
"We reject any intervention in our own affairs," he said, but unlike Hadi neither he nor Salman mentioned Iran by name.
As
tensions continued to escalate in Yemen, 86 Arab and foreign diplomats
mostly from the United Nations were evacuated from Aden on boats.
In the capital Sana around 200 foreigners were also gathered at the airport and preparing to leave. -
LA Times.
Saudi Arabia says it won't rule out building nuclear weapons
Asked whether Saudi Arabia would ever build nuclear weapons in an interview with US news channel CNN, Adel Al-Jubeir said the subject was “not something we would discuss publicly”.
Pressed later on the issue he said: “This is not something that I can comment on, nor would I comment on.”
The ambassador’s reticence to rule out a military nuclear programme may reignite concerns that the autocratic monarchy has its eye on a nuclear arsenal.
Western intelligence agencies believe that the Saudi monarchy paid for up to 60% of Pakistan’s nuclear programme in return for the ability to buy warheads for itself at short notice, the Guardian newspaper reported in 2010.
The two countries maintain close relations and are sometimes said to have a special relationship; they currently have close military ties and conduct joint exercises.
The Saudi Arabian regime also already possesses medium-range ballistic missiles in the form of the Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force.
In addition it has significant nuclear expertise in the form of a civilian nuclear programme of the kind Iran says it wants to develop.
In 2012 the Saudi Arabian government threatened to acquire nuclear weapons were neighbouring regional power Iran ever to do so.
“Politically, it would be completely unacceptable to have Iran with a nuclear capability and not the kingdom,” a senior Saudi source told The Times newspaper at the time.
The United States and other Western allies say a deal with Iran on its nuclear programme is possible. Iran denies it is building nuclear weapons. -
Independent.
How the Yemen conflict risks new chaos in the Middle East
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| People carry the body of a man killed in an airstrike on a marketplace in Saada. Naiyf Rahma/Reuters |
With negotiators chasing a Tuesday deadline for the framework of a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program, it seems unlikely that Iran would immediately respond militarily to this week’s Saudi airstrikes in Yemen, analysts say.
But the confrontation has added a new layer of unpredictability — and confusion — to the many, multidimensional conflicts that have turned large swaths of the Middle East into war zones over the past four years, analysts say.
The United States is aligned alongside Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and against them in Yemen. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who have joined in the Saudi offensive in Yemen, are bombing factions in Libya backed by Turkey and Qatar, who also support the Saudi offensive in Yemen. The Syrian conflict has been fueled by competition among all regional powers to outmaneuver one another on battlefields far from home.
Not since the 1960s — and perhaps going back even further — has there been a time when so many Arab states and factions were engaged in so many wars, in quite such confusing configurations, said Frederic Wehrey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“It’s so dangerous,” he said.
The trigger for this latest flare-up was the
march toward the headquarters of
Yemen’s president in the southern port city of Aden by the Shiite
Houthi militia, which overran the capital, Sanaa, several months ago.
By Thursday, when the Saudi-led coalition’s strikes were launched, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had
fled to Riyadh, and the Houthi rebels seemed poised to seize control of most of the rest of the country.
For
Saudi Arabia, which regards itself as the guardian of Sunni interests
in the region, the advance of the Shiite Houthis represented far more
than a threat to a Sunni ally, analysts say.
It was the
culmination of years of humiliating Iranian expansion throughout the
Middle East that has seen Sunni influence shrink at the expense of Iran
and its allies, and Saudi interests seemingly abandoned by the United
States, said Mustafa Alani of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.
For
Saudi Arabia, which regards itself as the guardian of Sunni interests
in the region, the advance of the Shiite Houthis represented far more
than a threat to a Sunni ally, analysts say.
It was the
culmination of years of humiliating Iranian expansion throughout the
Middle East that has seen Sunni influence shrink at the expense of Iran
and its allies, and Saudi interests seemingly abandoned by the United
States, said Mustafa Alani of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.
The
Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement holds sway in Lebanon; Iranian-backed
fighters have been instrumental in propping up President Bashar al-
Assad in Syria; and in Iraq, Iranian-backed militias wield power over more territory than the Iraqi army.
With
its intervention in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is serving notice that it will
no longer tolerate Iran’s unchecked expansion — nor will it count on the
United States to protect its interests in the Middle East, Alani said.
“It
started with Lebanon, then Syria, then Iraq and now Yemen. It’s like a
domino, and Yemen is the first attempt to stop the domino,” he said.
“Now there is an awakening in the region, a counterstrategy, and
Yemen is the testing ground. It is not just about Yemen, it is about
changing the balance of power in the region.”
Alani blamed the
United States and its pursuit of a deal with Iran for the expansion of
Iranian influence that triggered the Saudi intervention.
“It is not only the Iranian nuclear bomb that is an issue, it is Iranian behavior that is equal to a nuclear bomb,” he said.
Another
motive cited by Saudi officials for the intervention was the fear that
the advance of an Iranian-allied Shiite militia through the mostly Sunni
southern part of Yemen might trigger a stampede of support among
Yemen’s Sunnis for al-Qaeda — and perhaps even for the Islamic State,
also known as ISIS. The official al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula, already loosely controls a large swath of the
country. The Islamic State’s assertion of responsibility for a wave of
attacks against Shiite mosques in Sanaa last week suggested that the
Sunni group is gaining a foothold there.
As Egyptian warships
steamed toward the Yemeni coast and the United Arab Emirates joined the
Saudi air force in bombing targets in Yemen on Friday, veiled threats
from Iran underscored the potential for escalation.
An Iranian
parliamentarian told the semiofficial Fars News Agency that the Houthis
possess missiles capable of hitting up to 500 kilometers, or about 300
miles, inside Saudi Arabia. An unidentified official quoted by the
agency said the Houthis were preparing to block access to the Bab
al-Mandeb strait, which commands access to the Red Sea, through which
the Egyptian warships are sailing.
The United States has pledged
that it will act to ensure no interruption to shipping through the
strategically vital seaway, which links the Persian Gulf to the
Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.
So far, however, Iran’s
threats have been largely rhetorical. Analysts doubt Iran would be
prepared to jeopardize the substantial influence it has acquired
elsewhere in the region for the sake of Yemen, a far lesser prize than
Iraq, Syria or Lebanon, where its network of alliances brings access to
the Mediterranean and the borders of Israel.
In a lengthy speech
Friday night, the Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah poured scorn on Saudi
Arabia’s attempt to influence the outcome of the Yemeni conflict,
saying that it is doomed to fail “because these are the laws of God.”
Nasrallah stressed that he did not speak for Iran but said that Iranian and Hezbollah viewpoints usually coincide.
He suggested that negotiations would be preferable to an escalating war.
“There
is still time. There is still a chance. Arab countries . . . instead of
becoming partners in spilling the blood of the Yemeni people, let there
be an initiative to go to a political solution,” he said.
Saudi
officials have also indicated that they are hoping the strikes will
persuade the Houthi leaders to call off their advance and return to
talks intended to form a government in which they are represented along
with Hadi. Saudi officials said Friday that there were no immediate
plans for a ground incursion, although they said one could not be ruled
out.
But there has been no indication that the defiant Houthis
are willing to return to the negotiating table, and there is also a risk
that the airstrikes, which have so far killed dozens of people, will
only further polarize Yemen.
“What if the strikes don’t stop the
advance? A ground campaign is absolutely the last thing the Saudis want.
Where is the political track? How will it be formed?” asked John
Jenkins, a former British ambassador to Iraq and Saudi Arabia who is now
the Bahrain-based executive director of the Institute for International
and Strategic Studies in the Middle East.
Failure to reach a
deal in Lausanne, Switzerland, where the Iran nuclear talks are
underway, would only further increase the uncertainties — and perhaps
encourage Iran to retaliate, he said.
“The negotiations are one of the guarantees that things won’t blow up,” Jenkins said.
A
failed offensive in Yemen would also risk further empowering
extremists, much as Egyptian and Emirati airstrikes in Libya have served
to deepen and widen that country’s civil war, said the Carnegie
Endowment’s Wehrey.
“It’s hard for me to see how the Saudis will
bring this to a decisive end that will restore their people in Sanaa and
diminish ISIS and al-Qaeda,” he said. “In Libya, airstrikes polarized
the existing civil war and opened the way for ISIS, and I’m afraid of
the same thing happening in Yemen.” -
Washington Post.
Israel: Yemen is just part of Iran's Mideast master plan
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| Israel: Iran's Supreme Council. Plans for regional domination. (Photo: AFP)Add caption |
Operation
Storm of Resolve, designed to rescue Yemen President Abd-Rabbu Mansour
Hadi's regime from the clutches of the Houthi rebels, began with an
exercise in misdirection. At midnight between Wednesday and Thursday,
the first squadron of Saudi Arabian fighter planes launched attacks on
targets in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a – air force bases, arms depots
belonging to the rebels, the palace of former president Ali Abdullah
Saleh, and a reserve forces base in the south of the city that was taken
by the rebels last month.
The strike caught the rebels by
surprise. At a meeting earlier on Wednesday night between Houthi rebel
leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi and ousted president Salah, the two had
coordinated an assault on Aden, Yemen's second-largest city.
"If
Aden falls," the ousted president promised, "Yemen will fall, and the
forces will be able to turn their attention to the greater task at hand –
taking control of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait for the purpose of
overseeing marine traffic into the Red Sea."
With the Arab
response slow in coming, despite threats voiced by senior advisers to
the Saudi king, the rebel commanders in Yemen were sure they had at
least 24 hours in which to mount operations in the field before the Arab
foreign ministers met in Sharm el-Sheikh for an emergency summit. They
knew that the battle for power in Yemen would top the agenda, but
believed that they'd have until the end of the summit on Friday
afternoon before a green light was given to amass an Arab force to take
action in Yemen. The also failed to foresee a powerful military strike
and believed that time was on their side.
"We decided to take
action against the rebels in Yemen without getting the approval of the
Arab League," the spokesman for the Saudi Royal Palace said on Thursday
morning, following a night of air strikes on Sana'a and the retaking of
the airport in Aden.
It's been revealed, meanwhile, that in
behind-the-scenes discussions, four Arab states agreed to join the air
strikes under the command of the Saudi defense minister, Crown Prince
Mohammad bin Salman.
During a tour Wednesday of the Saudi-Yemen
border, Salman issued a stern warning to the rebels. "We are committed
to the security of the Yemeni people," he declared. "If you continue to
undermine the stability and threaten Saudi Arabia, you will get hit
hard."
A spokesman for the Houthi rebels responded in kind,
commenting: "We have already proved to you in 2009 how easy it is to
invade the territory of the kingdom. Your army is weak. Today we are
more skilled. When we decide to invade, we won't stop in the city of
Mecca, but will continue on to Riyadh to topple the government
institutions."
President Hadi, meanwhile, has gone underground.
"He is in a secure location and is monitoring the military operation,"
his spokeswoman declared. And a status on the president's Facebook page
reads: "We are currently taking measures to restore internal stability
to our country. We will fly the flag of Yemen and not the Iranian flag
over our homeland."
Washington isn't helping
The
situation in Yemen took a turn for the worse some two months ago, when
the Houthis, a Shiite opposition group founded in 1992 by Iran, managed
to seize control of the capital, Sana'a. President Hadi and his prime
minister, Khaled Bahah, were forced to announce their resignations. The
Yemeni parliament rejected the resignations in an effort to preserve the
government institutions, but Hadi insisted, and the government and
parliament were dissolved.
With the Houthis not satisfied with
the president's resignation and threatening to assassinate him, Hadi got
the message and went into hiding. "If you force me to stay in my
position, he told the commanders of the Yemeni military, "the terrorists
will get to me and eliminate me."
The Houthis then took control
of the presidential palace in Sana'a, and their commander, Abdul Malik
al-Houthi, declared: "We are staying here to conduct the fight against
al-Qaeda in Yemen."
Al-Houthi deliberately failed to make
mention of the president-in-hiding and the collapse of the institutions
of power: For him, the excuse was and remains the Sunni terrorist
organization, which has set up an affiliate group in Yemen. On his way
to shake the regime in Saudi Arabia, he has to block the terrorists.
While
making efforts to enlist the help of his neighbors in the Gulf, Hadi
has also appealed to the UN Security Council in New York, asking that it
declare Yemen a no-fly zone and thus put an end to Iran's supply by air
of weapons, military equipment and thousands of instructors and
fighters to the rebel forces.
The UN secretary-general is
"checking" and "considering," and is definitely "concerned" – but he has
yet to call a special session to discuss the grave ramifications of the
situation in Yemen. And the United States, too, hasn't helped much at
all. After Washington "forgot" to add Iran's name to the annual list of
countries that sponsor terrorism, it is in no hurry to send force to
Yemen. "We won't participate in the operation, but we will provide
assistance," the White House announced on Thursday.
The Gulf
States know by now not to rely on the Obama administration: Washington
is engrossed up to its neck in fine tuning the nuclear deal with Iran;
and as far as the US administration is concerned, Yemen can go ahead and
sink deeper into a bloody conflict. Last week, after the attacks at the
mosques in Sana'a that killed 137 people, the United States withdrew
its 125 advisers who had been living in Yemen for years as "training
instructors," but were actually involved in gathering intelligence on
irregular movements in the Gulf.
President Hadi, the Pentagon's
protégé, got the message. He internalized the fact that if Yemen doesn't
enlist the help of its neighbors in the Gulf, Iran will continue to
make progress towards its ultimate goal – regime change in Saudi Arabia.
A Red Sea nightmare
From
the perspective of the West, Yemen has always been a remote and
uninteresting country. It is the poorest country in the Arab world, with
a primitive economy, massive unemployment and a very high level (60
percent) of illiteracy. Of the 27 million citizens, two-thirds are Sunni
Muslims and one-third are Shiite.
"The ayatollahs of Iran seek
to take control of the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb so they can determine who
can cross the Red Sea to the Suez Canal," says Dr. Yasser bin Hilal, a
political science lecturer at the University of Sana'a, who traveled to
Washington in an attempt to shake up the administration and the
intelligence agencies.
"If they are successful, it will also
affect the movement of ships sailing with goods from the Far East to the
port of Ashdod in Israel. Try to picture the nightmare scenario –
fighters in the uniforms of the Revolutionary Guards directing maritime
traffic, boarding cargo ships, checking the cargoes and crew, and
blocking passage to anything that doesn't serve their interests."
For
its part, Saudi Arabia is issuing statements that could have been
written in Jerusalem. "Iran is an aggressive state that is intervening
and operating forces in the Arab world," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud
al-Faisal said this week at a joint press conference with his British
counterpart, Philip Hammond. "Its nuclear weapons are a threat to the
Gulf and the entire world."
He then went on to convey a message
to the Obama administration, saying: "Striking a deal that Iran doesn't
deserve is not right. Think, too, about the dangerous ramifications of
the Iranians' 'second plan.'"
This "second plan", about which
Israeli intelligence officials have been warning for the past five
years, involves Iran's desire for Shiite control over the Arab world,
with the ultimate objective being control over the Muslim holy sites in
Saudi Arabia.
"We're dealing with two parallel courses of
action," says influential Saudi media pundit Jamal Khashoggi. "If they
halt the nuclear program by means of military force or a diplomatic
move, as the Americans a currently trying to do, the Iranians will still
be left with the threatening alternative of 'creeping progress' on the
ground, throughout the Arab world.
"They are goal-oriented. They have a map of objectives to achieve on the road to Saudi Arabia." -
YNET News.
Iran and powers close in on 2-3 page nuclear deal, success uncertain
 |
US Secretary of State John Kerry (L), US Secretary of Energy Ernest
Moniz (2L), Robert Malley (3L), of the US National Security Council,
European Union High
Representative Federica Mogherini
(C), Head of Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation Ali Akbar Salehi (2R),
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (R) and others
wait for a meeting
at the Beau Rivage Palace Hotel on March 27, 2015 in Lausanne.
REUTERS/Brendan Smialowski/Pool |
Iran and major powers are close to agreeing a two- or three-page accord with specific numbers as the basis of a resolution of a 12-year standoff over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, officials have told Reuters.
As the French and German foreign ministers arrived in Switzerland on Saturday to join talks between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Western and Iranian officials familiar with the negotiations cautioned that they could still fail.
Kerry and Zarif have been in Lausanne for days to try to reach an outline agreement by a self-imposed deadline of March 31 between Iran on the one hand and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China on the other.
"The sides are very, very close to the final step and it could be signed or agreed and announced verbally," a senior Iranian official familiar with the talks told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Other officials echoed the remarks while warning that several crucial issues were still being hotly debated.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters on arrival: "I hope we can get a robust agreement. Iran has the right to civil nuclear power, but with regard to the atomic bomb, it's 'no'."
"The talks were long and difficult," he added. "We have moved forward on certain points, but on others not enough."
18 MONTHS OF TALKS
The negotiations, under way for nearly 18 months, aim to hammer out an accord under which Iran, which denies any ambition to build nuclear weapons, halts sensitive nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, with the ultimate aim of reducing the risk of a war in the Middle East.
Ahead of another meeting with Zarif on Saturday, Kerry said he expected the discussions to run late. Zarif added that the meetings would run through "evening, night, midnight, morning".
The British and Russian foreign ministers were due to arrive in Lausanne over the weekend, along with a senior Chinese official.
If agreed, the document would cover key numbers for a comprehensive agreement between Iran and the six powers, such as the maximum number and types of uranium enrichment centrifuges Iran could operate, the size of uranium stockpiles it could maintain, the types of atomic research and development it could undertake, and details on the lifting of international sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy.
Two officials said it was likely that most of the outline agreement would be made public, though some said certain sections would be kept confidential.
Several Iranian officials denied that Iran was close to agreeing an outline document, but a Western diplomat who confirmed the Reuters story said the comments were aimed at a domestic audience.
COMPREHENSIVE DEAL BY JUNE
One of the key numbers is expected to be the duration of the agreement, which the officials said would have to be in place for more than 10 years. Once it expired, there would probably be a period of special U.N. monitoring of Tehran's nuclear program.
The framework accord should be followed by a comprehensive deal by June 30 that includes full technical details on the limits set for Iran's sensitive nuclear activities.
It remains unclear whether the framework deal will be formally signed or agreed verbally. The Iranians have expressed concern that a written agreement would limit their negotiating space when the technical details are worked out.
The officials cautioned that, even if such a preliminary deal was done in the coming days, there was no guarantee that agreement would be reached on the many technical details.
Some details have been out in the open for months. An Iranian government website said in November that Washington could let Iran keep some 6,000 early-generation centrifuges, down from nearly 10,000 now in operation.
Along with the timetable for the lifting of U.N. sanctions, officials say the biggest sticking point in the talks remains centrifuge research and development. They say Iran wants to conduct advanced centrifuge research at the underground Fordow site, but the Western powers dislike the idea of Iran operating centrifuges there.
The deal would call for U.S., European Union and U.N. sanctions to be lifted according to a specific schedule, though some could be lifted very quickly, the officials said. -
Yahoo.
