Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged global powers Wednesday to "seize" the moment to reach what could be a historic deal to cut back Iran's nuclear programme.
"Iran has shown its readiness to engage with dignity and it's time for our negotiating partners to seize the moment and use this opportunity which may not be repeated," Zarif said, after meeting alone with US Secretary of State John Kerry.
He was speaking as exhausting, marathon talks again went into the evening on the seventh day of negotiations in a luxury lakeside hotel in the Swiss city of Lausanne.
The US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany want Iran to scale down its nuclear programme to extend the "breakout" time needed for the Islamic republic to assemble enough nuclear material to make a bomb.
"We are negotiating with six countries with different interests, different positions and relations with the Islamic Republic. Sometimes they have different points of view," Zarif said.
Iran denies wanting the bomb and its negotiators are under strict orders from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to refuse any curtailing of its programme without sanctions relief.
Zarif said his country wanted "an entente with the world but it will not accept submitting to force and will not accept excessive demands."
Global powers have always refused an immediate lifting of all sanctions in order to be able to swiftly put them back into place if Iran violates the deal.
The stakes are high, with fears that failure may set the United States and Israel on a road to military action to thwart Iran's nuclear drive.
"Our friends need to decide whether they want to be with Iran based on respect or whether they want to continue based on pressure," Zarif said.
"They have tested the other one. It is high time to test this one."
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