Kerry, Zarif in crunch round of Iran nuclear talks

Iran nuclear talks entered a critical week March 16 with US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart sitting down in Switzerland seeking an elusive breakthrough after 18 months of intense negotiations.
      
Time is running out, however, with Kerry and Mohammad Javad Zarif aiming to agree the outlines of an agreement by the end of the month. A full accord is then due by July 1.
      
Both men, who began meeting soon after 0700 GMT in a luxury hotel in the lakeside city of Lausanne, are also under intense pressure from domestic hardliners worried they will give too much away.
      
Speaking in Egypt before travelling to Switzerland, Kerry sought to ease such concerns, saying that the aim is "not just to get any deal, it is to get the right deal".
      
"If (Iran's nuclear programme is) peaceful, let's get it done. And my hope is that in the next days, that will be possible," Kerry told CBS television.
      
There were, however, "important gaps," he said.
      
"Several questions need to be discussed, those where we haven't found a solution yet and also those where we have found solutions but where we need to discuss certain details," Zarif said on Sunday.
     
Zarif was later Monday due in Brussels to meet his British, French, German and EU counterparts before returning to Lausanne.
      
Negotiators from the other five powers involved in the talks -- Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- were to be involved from Tuesday, according to Iranian officials.
                      
The US and Iran have not had diplomatic relations for 35 years but the 2013 election of President Hassan Rouhani resulted in a minor thaw and a diplomatic push to resolve the more...