Iranian President Hassan Rohani appealed to world leaders including US President Barack Obama as part of an intense diplomatic push to ensure that a deal on Tehran’s nuclear programme can be reached ahead of a fast-approaching deadline.
Rohani wrote to the American president, US officials confirmed, as well as to the leaders of the five other powers heading efforts to resolve the 12-year standoff over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, France 24 reported.
Talks on the subject resumed in the Swiss city of Lausanne on Thursday.
Negotiators are racing against the clock to meet a March 31 deadline by which it is hoped a framework for a deal can at least be agreed.
The content of Rohani’s letters was not known. But the Iranian president, whose 2013 election was the catalyst for the current push to reach a deal, also phoned the leaders of Russia, China, Britain and France, his office said.
Highlighting the difficulties of talks that resumed in Switzerland Thursday between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Rohani also said Iran wants all sanctions lifted.
The so-called 5+1 powers negotiating with Iran – the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany – are, however, insisting that sanctions will only be suspended, not lifted, to enable them to be quickly put back in place if Tehran violates the deal.
And the US Senate voted unanimously Thursday supporting a non-binding measure to slap new economic sanctions on Iran should it violate terms of any nuclear deal reached.