Path of progress widens in Iran

Los Angeles Times: It’s disappointing that negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program failed to produce a final agreement by Monday’s deadline. But the decision by Iran and six world powers to keep talking is vastly preferable to the alternative. A rupture in the negotiations would have freed Iran from its commitment — which the International Atomic Energy Agency says Tehran has honored — not to accelerate its efforts to develop nuclear energy while negotiations proceed.

Moreover, both sides indicate progress in recent weeks toward the ultimate goal: a permanent agreement under which Iran would credibly agree to use nuclear power only for peaceful purposes in exchange for the lifting of sanctions that have damaged its economy. Secretary of State John F. Kerry said that negotiators for Iran and the so-called P5-plus-1 — the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany — “now see a path for solving issues that until now were intractable.”