France Says Iran Faces Crucial Choices as Nuclear Talks Extended

Cairo: France said on Saturday it hoped the extension on nuclear talks between the West and Iran would convince Tehran to make the "indispensable choices" needed to reach a long term deal, but warned that major differences still remained.

"France hopes that this new deadline will allow Iran to make indispensable choices that we are expecting in order to reach a long-term, credible and lasting agreement," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement during a visit to Egypt.

Iran and six powers agreed to continue talking for four more months after failing to meet a July 20 deadline to reach a deal on curbing the Iranian nuclear programme in exchange for ending sanctions, enabling Tehran to access $2.8 billion of frozen cash.

"The discussions with Iran have seen some progress on certain points, but major differences remain on several subjects, uranium enrichment in particular," Fabius said.

Fabius said that Iran was expected to cooperate with the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over possible military dimensions to its nuclear programme.

"Iran  has committed to show results to the IAEA by the end of month. These would be an important signal of Iran's seriousness before the discussions resume in September," he added.