Secret parameters would be included in any agreement over the future of Iran’s nuclear deal.

Secret parameters would be included in any agreement over the future of Iran’s nuclear program, say diplomats. (Guardian).

Foreign ministers at talks in Lausanne on Iran’s nuclear programme have said they are inching towards a joint statement, which would be accompanied by a set of agreed parameters that would be kept secret, according to European diplomats.

After an all-night negotiating session, the ministers continued to make slow progress towards a consensus, but diplomats said there were still a small number of issues to be resolved before a joint statement could be made.

The negotiations in Lausanne have entered their eighth day and are two days beyond a deadline for arriving at a framework accord which was supposed to be a preliminary step before a comprehensive and detailed agreement at the end of June.

The Iranian delegation, led by foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, only wants a vague joint statement, while the US secretary of state, John Kerry, needs to bring back specifics to Washington to convince Congress not to impose new sanctions.

The compromise, say European diplomats, would be a joint statement of understanding and two or three pages of agreed “parameters” setting out points agreed by Iran and the six world powers taking part in the Lausanne talks. Those details would not be made public but would be briefed to governments and to Congress.

If everything goes well, there will be a formal, public statement by midnight Mohammad Javad Zarif The parameters would include Iran’s enrichment capacity and its allowed stockpile of enriched uranium.

They would describe the redesign of Iran’s heavy water reactor in Arak in such a way as to produce only tiny amounts of plutonium as a byproduct. But a few issues were still unresolved on Thursday morning.

The main restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme would last 10 years, but some would last for a few years beyond that, including curbs on Iran’s development work on new centrifuges. What kind of curbs and how long they would last remain a matter of dispute. So does the timing of the lifting of some UN sanctions, including an arms embargo and a ban on the transfer of dual-use technology.  Hmmm.......Secret parameters like....'You can keep you hidden facilities and hidden centrifuges'. Read the full story here.