Iran nuclear talks fail to fall in line with Swiss punctuality

Lausanne is the kind of well-heeled Swiss city that functions on order and timing. Unless, that is, you happen to be a nuclear negotiator.

The past week of high-stakes diplomatic talks here to try and broker a landmark framework between Iran and world powers, aimed at permanently curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions, have been anything but predictable.

Indeed, were it not for the seriousness of the matters at stake, and their grand setting in the belle epoque halls of the Beau Rivage Palace - site of the 1923 treaty of Lausanne which carved up the remainder of the Ottoman Empire - the talks might even at times have seemed like farce.

Ministers have come and gone, deadlines been missed and plenaries extended. Agreements have been tentatively made behind closed doors only to be unwound. Optimism has quickly given way to pessimism and exhaustion.

"I don't know anyone that expected this level of trouble," says Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group. "I'm puzzling over what happened."

Following a weekend of protracted and difficult negotiations, diplomats from Iran and the P5+1 - the five permanent members of the security council and Germany - missed a self-imposed deadline on Tuesday, rolling their discussions through the night and into Wednesday.

Right up until the last moments, few seemed to know what kind of declaration would emerge.

Going into the talks, hopes had been high that the seven countries would leave Lausanne with a broad but concrete outline of a comprehensive agreement to overturn economic sanctions against Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme - potentially paving the way for a broader detente that could recast the geopolitical dynamics of the Middle East.

Under the framework of these negotiations, set in November, diplomats and technical experts would then have until the end of June to flesh out that deal and ink a final, binding agreement.

For the P5+1, the past seven days in Lausanne have strained relationships within the group.

Some, particularly France, are critical of what they viewed as a poorly-constructed approach to negotiations. The need to have a firm, political-level set of agreements by end of March - the cornerstone of the US approach - tactically disadvantaged them, some European diplomats claim. Many close followers of the talks agree.

This [two stage] "framework agreement" format was not a good idea," says Mr Kupchan. "The Obama Administration is really feeling the heat from Congress. The US therefore treated the preliminary deadline more like a final one, demanding an agreement that settled all but details. The plan was probably to argue to Congress 'here's a good deal, we dare you to take it down'. But France at least didn't see it that way. For them, 31 March was about momentum, and 30 June was the real show."

France's ambassador to Washington, Gerard Araud tweeted on Wednesday: "Should I say again that 03/31 was not intended to be a "dateline" but the moment to assess whether we had a momentum towards an agreement?"

The problem, said one senior Western diplomat, was that the March deadline had imposed a tactical constraint on the P5+1 that the Iranians did not feel. "They dug their heels in and we weren't expecting that," he said.

The tone of the negotiations certainly turned quickly.

Leaving Moscow for Switzerland on Tuesday morning (after having already been and gone once), Sergei Lavrov, Russia's saturnine foreign minister had said there were "big chances of a deal."

After arriving at the Beau Rivage, Mr Lavrov joined a five hour plenary meeting. The discussion - which was supposed to be the final hurdle to an agreement - became bogged down in technical details, said diplomats familiar with the proceedings.

Rather than addressing the "one or two" outstanding political issues on the table - especially that of UN sanctions relief - the head of the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, ended up drawing Ernest Moniz, US Energy Secretary into scientific detail.

The EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini took a decision to call it a night at 1am. Mr Lavrov went to the bar. The US delegation went back to their suite of rooms for a secure video-briefing with the US president, vice-president, secretary of defence and over a dozen top national security advisers.

The Obama administration used the March deadline as a vital tool in trying to fend off pressure from the US Congress that could have scuppered the talks. As Republicans took control of both houses of Congress at the start of the year, there was a growing wave of support for a bill to impose new sanctions on Iran.

"It is an artificial and self-inflicted deadline," says Robert Einhorn, a former state department official involved in the nuclear talks. "It has imposed excessive and unnecessary pressure on American negotiators."

Seasoned diplomats here are still sanguine. There is breathing space for the next two weeks until the US Congress regroups after its Easter recess, they note, and the overarching framework of the negotiations with Tehran need not completely expire until June.

All the same, as one western official said: "There are merits with firm dates. They can be artificial but sometimes there is a time for decision. What can we get two weeks from now that we can't get now?"

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