Deadline looms for US on Iran nuke deal

Associated Press

MUSCAT, OMAN

The Obama administration is facing its last best chance to curb Iran’s nuclear program — not just to meet an end-of-the-month deadline for a deal, but also to seal one before skeptical Republicans who will control Congress next year are able to scuttle it.

Years of negotiations to limit Tehran’s nuclear production entered the final stretch Sunday as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and European Union senior adviser Catherine Ashton in Oman’s capital.

With no immediate agreement in sight, officials said the discussions were expected to continue into today.

The stakes are high as the Nov. 24 deadline approaches. A deal could quell Mideast fears about Iran’s ability to build a nuclear bomb and help revive the Islamic Republic’s economy.

It also would deliver a foreign policy triumph for the White House, which is being hammered by prominent Republican senators over its handling of the civil war in Syria and the growth of the Islamic State militancy in Iraq.

Those same critics seek to put the brakes on U.S.-Iranian bartering, if not shut it down completely, once they seize the majority Jan. 3.

President Barack Obama told CBS’ “Face The Nation” that his administration’s “unprecedented sanctions” on Iran are what forced Tehran to the negotiating table.