U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L), Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (R) and EU envoy Catherine Ashton pose for photographers before a meeting in Vienna November 22, 2014.

Reaching a comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers aimed at resolving the stand-off over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions will be impossible by a Nov. 24 deadline, the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported on Sunday.

“Considering the short time left until the deadline and number of issues that needed to be discussed and resolved, it is impossible to reach a final and comprehensive deal by Nov. 24,” ISNA quoted an unnamed member of Iran’s negotiating team in Vienna as saying.

“The issue of extension of the talks is an option on the table and we will start discussing it if no deal is reached by Sunday night,” the person said.

Meanwhile, an Iranian source told Agence France-Presse that Tehran is prepared to have nuclear negotiations with world powers extended by up to a year if no agreement is struck later Sunday.

Such an extension would be under the terms of the Geneva accord that traded curbs on Iran’s nuclear program for limited sanctions relief, the source said.

“We are still focused on agreeing to a kind of political agreement” which would not be written but which would allow for negotiators to fine-tune technical aspects of the agreement later, the source said amid tense marathon talks in Vienna.

“But if between now and this afternoon or this evening we don’t get there, the solution is we consider an extension of the Geneva accord,” he said.

“That could be for a period of six months or a year. We must absolutely avoid a climate of confrontation with escalation from one side and the other,” he added.

The United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China began a final round of talks with Iran on Tuesday, looking to clinch a pact under which Tehran would curb its nuclear work in exchange for lifting economically crippling sanctions.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Vienna on Sunday, RIA Novosti reported, to join the troubled nuclear talks.

Lavrov, a crucial player in the negotiations, was set to join U.S. Secretary of State Kerry and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The British and French foreign ministers were due in Vienna later Sunday, while their Chinese colleague was expected by Monday.

Iran rejects Western allegations that it has been seeking to develop a nuclear bomb capability.

Iranian and western diplomats close to the negotiations in Vienna told Reuters the two sides remained deadlocked on the key issues of Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity and the lifting of the sanctions.

The Iranian official was quoted as saying the sides “were trying to reach a framework accord on major issues like … the number of centrifuges, enrichment capacity and the timeframe of lifting sanctions.”

 
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