The United States says tough challenges remain to seal a nuclear deal with Iran, vowing not to be distracted by external politics in its quest to stop Tehran acquiring the atomic bomb.
Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif wrapped up three days of "intense" nuclear negotiations in the Swiss lakeside town of Montreux on Wednesday still with no deal, as a March 31 deadline for a framework agreement looms.
"We've made some progress from where we were and important choices need to be made," Kerry told reporters after the talks, with a senior State Department official adding that "tough challenges" had yet to be resolved.
Zarif also told Iranian state television after the talks that "clear differences" remained between the sides, especially on the issue of the punishing sanctions Iran hopes to shed through the deal under discussion.
Speaking a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stridently criticised an agreement he said would not stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, Kerry stressed that the purpose of negotiations was to "get the right deal, one that can withstand scrutiny".
Netanyahu warned in his dramatic speech to the US Congress on Tuesday that an agreement that was "supposed to prevent nuclear proliferation, would instead spark a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the planet".
Israel itself is widely believed to have atomic weapons, making it the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, but its official policy is to neither confirm nor deny the existence of such an arsenal.
Kerry said that "any deal we reach would give us the intrusive access and verification measures necessary to confirm that Iran's nuclear facilities are indeed on a peaceful path.
"That would allow us to promptly detect any attempt to cheat or break out and then to respond appropriately."
But he cautioned that the so-called P5+1 countries - the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany - negotiating with Iran would not "be distracted by external factors or politics".
Zarif, meanwhile, said the sides had made progress on the issue of its Fordo nuclear plant, but still had a way to go on Arak.
The world powers negotiating with Iran want to block the country from enriching uranium at Fordo, and from developing weapons-grade plutonium at its unfinished Arak reactor, a senior US official said last week.
Kerry flew to Riyadh later on Wednesday to brief US Gulf allies on the emerging deal and plans to meet in Paris on Saturday with his British, French and German counterparts.
The next two-way talks between Iran and the United States will be held on March 15, most likely in Geneva, although the venue has not been confirmed.
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