“If we are in a situation where we sense that the talks have stalled then yes the United States and the international community is prepared to walk away because we have very clear about what kinds of commitments we expect and we’ve been clear about those kinds of commitments for an in excess of a year,” Earnest stated.
Earnest admitted that “gaps” remain in trying to reach an agreement with Iran, which is why talks between negotiators are still ongoing.
Iran and the group of P5+1 countries that include the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France and China plus Germany are negotiating in Lausanne, Switzerland a deal that would ensure a peaceful nature of Tehran's nuclear program.
Earnest explained that getting Iran to make “commitments on their own to shut down every path to a nuclear weapon and agree to a set of intrusive set of inspections” is what Obama still thinks is the “most effective way” towards reaching an agreement.
Such an approach, however, requires the Iranians “to make some serious commitments and those commitments at this point have not been finalized or agreed to yet,” he added.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said earlier on Wednesday that significant progress has been made toward reaching a deal with Iran.
Iran and the international mediators have been in talks since November 2013 trying to broker the agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program. The new self-imposed deadline for the final deal is now set for July 1, 2015.
