Iran: Hardly a nuclear deal

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said it was unlikely a deal on Iran's nuclear program would be reached by November.

Then the deadline for Iran to reach an agreement with the world powers expires, and even if the general agreement is reached within the stipulated time, Zarif believes that the negotiating parties will need more time to agree on the details.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (AIEA) announced that its head Yuki Amano will visit Iran on Sunday to "try to make progress in dialogue and cooperation" with the country.

In July, Iran and a group of world powers - the US, Great Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany - extended the period for reaching an agreement until the end of November.

Western powers have long assumed that Iran was secretly developing a nuclear weapons program alongside a civilian nuclear program, which Iran has denied.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said earlier this week that the fiercest opponents of a deal with major powers over Tehran's nuclear program should go "to hell."

In a speech at the annual meeting of Iranian ambassadors, Rouhani called harsh critics of the deal "political cowards."

The fiercest critics of the talks oppose last year's interim deal, saying Tehran offered too many concessions and got too few in return.

Supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all state affairs, however, backed Iran's negotiating team.

The transitional agreement that Iran and the major powers reached in January froze Iran's nuclear program, and in return the West eased sanctions on Tehran worth about seven billion dollars.

The biggest stumbling block in the negotiations are the differences in the understanding of how Iran could transform its nuclear program for some peaceful purposes - to produce electricity and medical isotopes, but at the same time be prevented from developing atomic weapons.

The main point of contention is the enrichment of uranium, which can be used to obtain fuel for reactors, but also for nuclear weapons.