Upon his arrival to Vienna, Sergei Lavrov met with his German, US and Iranian counterparts. Top Russian diplomat said that negotiations on Iran's controversial nuclear program were moving in the right direction and a final nuclear deal might be reached in the upcoming days.
"The situation with the talks is progressing in the right direction. The remaining issues are, for the most part, not technical, but procedural, I would say, such as formalizing the agreements and presenting them to the UN Security Council," Lavrov told reporters.
Javad Zarif, however, avoided making any clear prognosis, and took a cautious and evasive position.
He also noted that Iranians would accept only a fair and balanced deal, which recognized Iran's rights.
Finally, the United States demonstrated the least flexibility on the day of the deadline's expiry. Although there were no bold statements from State Secretary John Kerry, who was present in Vienna, US President Barack Obama stated that Washington would walk away from the nuclear deal negotiations with Iran, if that was a bad deal.
"I will walk away from the negotiations if, in fact, it is a bad deal,” Obama, pressed by the opposition to the deal at home, said.
A "bad deal" implies obstacles to verifying Tehran’s full compliance with the conditions of the agreement, he explained.
Therefore, the agreement is expected to be reached in about a week, and the ministerial meeting of all the participants of the negotiating process will most likely take place on July 5.
So far, the most disputable issues remain the timing of lifting the sanctions against Iran, as well as the scale of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of sites that may have relation to the country's nuclear program.
