US Secretary of State John Kerry said that US President Barack Obama does not intend to extend the terms of multilateral negotiations aimed at overcoming the problem of Iran's nuclear program.
In early February, appearing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a joint press conference at the White House, Obama expressed the view that the negotiations of the "five plus one" with Iran have reached a stage at which Tehran must make a political decision on the settlement of the crisis over its nuclear program.
According to him, the questions being considered by the five permanent UN Security Council and Germany with Iran are no longer technical. "The question now is whether Iran has the political will and desire to reach an agreement ... We have reached a point, where they [the Iranians] need to make a decision," TASS quotes John Kerry.
The US president also assured that the unity of the "five plus one" group persists despite the use of Western sanctions against Russia in connection with the internal armed conflict in Ukraine. Russia "does play a constructive role in this field," Obama declared, giving exactly the same assessment of the actions of another party of the "six" - China. "On the other side of the table [of negotiations], at which the group of "five plus one" sits, there are no splits," the president said.
Based on this, he again asked Congress not to hurry to tighten unilateral sanctions against Iran. In addition, Obama did not deny that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still have "real differences" in their views on "sanctions against Iran." "It makes no sense to poison the negotiations" with Iran "for a month or two" before their anticipated completion, using new sanctions against Iran, Obama believes.
