Special to WorldTribune.com

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Iran and six world powers say they have reached an agreement on “key parameters” of a comprehensive nuclear agreement that must be finalized by June 30.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, reading from a joint statement with Iran at a press conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, said the understanding reached on April 2 is a “decisive step” in the long negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief for Tehran from economic sanctions.

She said Iran’s uranium-enrichment capacity will be reduced and another facility will be converted into a nuclear physics research center, among other things, in a future agreement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran and officials from France, Britain, Germany, the United States, Russia, and China are still “some time away from reaching where we want to be.”

He said all UN Security Council resolutions placing sanctions against Iran will be terminated under a comprehensive deal, reportedly after compliance is confirmed by the UN’s nuclear agency.

U.S. President Barack Obama is due to speak soon about the breakthrough from the White House.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted that it was a “big day,” saying there was a deal “to resolve major issues on [Iran’s] nuclear program” and that all sides would be “back to work soon on a final deal.”

Iran and the six world powers — who have held talks in the Swiss resort Lausanne for the past eight days — missed a March 31 deadline to establish a framework agreement.

Western nations want to ensure Iran cannot build a nuclear bomb, while Tehran wants a swift end to UN, U.S., and European Union sanctions that have badly hurt its economy.

Negotiators have been wrangling over the scope of uranium enrichment Iran would be allowed to conduct, where stockpiles of enriched uranium should be stored, proposed limits on Iran’s nuclear research and development, and the timing and conditions for the removal of sanctions.

The five permanent UN Security Council nations and Germany are seeking verifiable curbs on Iran’s nuclear program that ensure Tehran is not able to develop nuclear weapons.

Securing a comprehensive deal after more than two decades of tension over Iran’s nuclear program would improve the chances of rapprochement between Iran and the United States, whose relations have been badly strained since the Middle East country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But conservatives in both the United States and Iran are extremely wary of a deal, as are U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond (left), U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, and Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif at the announcement of British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond (left), U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, and Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif at the announcement of “key parameters” agreed on a future nuclear deal with Tehran.

An interim deal was reached in November 2013, but negotiators have missed two self-imposed deadlines for a comprehensive agreement since then.

Iran says its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes, mostly power generation, and it wants U.S., EU, and UN sanctions lifted swiftly.

The six powers hope to ensure that for at least the next 10 years, Iran is at least one year away from being able to produce enough fissile material for an atomic weapon, and they want Iran’s most sensitive nuclear work to be suspended for more than a decade.

Officials from both sides have said the main sticking points were the removal of the UN sanctions, the rules for reimposing them if Tehran fails to adhere to the deal, and Iranian demands for the right to unfettered research and development into advanced nuclear centrifuges after an initial 10-year period covered by the potential agreement expires.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly warned that a deal with Iran could pave its path to the bomb rather than block it.

On April 2, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said all options were on the table in the face of the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Speaking to public radio, Steinitz said Israel would seek to counter any threat through diplomacy and intelligence but “if we have no choice…the military option is on the table.”

U.S. Defense Secratary Ashton Carter said in an interview earlier this week that if a nuclear deal with Iran is not reached, “the military option certainly will remain on the table.”

Iran’s defense minister, Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan, said on April 2 that Carter’s comments were “designed to affect the rational atmosphere of negotiations” in Lausanne.

Dehghan dismissed Carter’s remarks as an “empty” threat that would not affect Iran’s “reasonable, rational, and fair position” in the talks, the official IRNA news agency reported.

  Not a done deal: Iran, West announce ‘decisive step’, WorldTribune.com