Region

TEHRAN — An Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Yemen and held hostage for nearly two years has been rescued in a military operation and returned to Tehran on Thursday, official media reported.

Nour Ahmad Nikbakht was seized in July 2013 while leaving his home in Sanaa by gunmen suspected of being members of Al Qaeda.

Iranian state television broadcast images Thursday of the diplomat arriving at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran.

"I was kidnapped by unknown gunmen and terrorists as I left my home to go to work," Nikbakht said.

He said "many efforts were made by soldiers from [Iran's secret services], the intelligence ministry and the foreign ministry" to secure his release.

Nikbakht was held by suspected Al Qaeda militants in a remote area between the southern provinces of Shabwa and Baida, tribal and Yemeni security sources said.

"I was in an extremely difficult situation and I did not know what was happening in the outside world," he told state media.

Intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi said the operation to free Nikbakht was executed "with the fewest possible casualties".

Tehran had "refused the conditions set by the terrorists" for the diplomat's release, Alavi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Deputy foreign minister Hussein Amir Abdollahian added that Nikbakht was rescued by a military intelligence unit "after a series of complicated operations in a difficult area in Yemen".

In January last year, another Iranian diplomat, Ali Asghar Assadi, was shot dead in an attack in a neighbourhood in Sanaa housing several foreign embassies.

Nikbakht's release came less than a week after Saudi diplomat Abdullah Al Khalidi was freed and returned home after spending close to three years in Al Qaeda's captivity.

Yemen, a key front line in the US war against Al Qaeda, has been gripped by unrest since longtime president Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in early 2012 after a bloody year-long popular uprising.

Violence has increased since a Shiite militia known as the Houthis swept into the capital last September.

The Houthis, who occupied the seats of power in February in what critics branded an attempted coup, are accused of receiving backing from Shiite-dominated Iran.

SANAA — Yemen's dominant Shiite Muslim Houthi militia seized the offices of a political conciliation body late on Wednesday, hours after the president refused UN-brokered talks with their powerful movement unless they withdrew from Sanaa.

Yemen, a neighbour of top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and global security worry because of its strong Al Qaeda presence, is caught in a stand-off between Western-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the Houthi clan, now the country's de facto rulers who are supported by Iran.

Last month, Hadi fled Houthi house arrest to the southern port city of Aden and re-established his presidency there. Soon afterwards, the United Nations announced it would mediate in a dialogue between the two sides, warning that Yemen was sliding towards civil war.

Around 15 armed Houthis forced their way into and searched the offices of the National Dialogue's secretariat in Sanaa late on Wednesday, the general secretariat said in a statement.

With these actions, the Houthis, who left armed guards in front of the building, were hampering a potential political settlement, the secretariat said.

"As everyone knows, the general secretariat is a technical apparatus which is neutral... It cannot work under the authority and control of any political party," it said in the statement.

An employee at the secretariat told Reuters that Hadi has told it to relocate to Aden and continue its work from there, but the statement asked for the Houthis to let the secretariat continue its work in Sanaa.

Hadi wants Sanaa back

Yemen's National Dialogue once played a key role in the country's attempt to move to democracy after a 2011 uprising toppled long-time ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh and Hadi took over in a Gulf-brokered power transfer.

Hampered by Yemen's intricate patchwork of political, religious and tribal allegiances, the initative failed, but the takeover of its headquarters by the Houthis comes at a sensitive time.

The UN talks to resolve the deadlock have only just begun, and Hadi has already signalled that he will not negotiate unless the Houthis vacate the capital.

On Wednesday, he rejected two proposals put to him for solving the crisis, both of which would have preserved his title as president, participants in a meeting with the UN's Jamal Benomar told Reuters.

Meanwhile, most of Yemen has been left without state services or authority, and deadly violence is a daily occurrence as Houthis, state security forces, tribesmen, southern separatists and Al Qaeda militants clash with each other.

BEIRUT — Dozens were killed Wednesday when Syrian rebels set off a powerful tunnel explosion targeting an intelligence headquarters in Aleppo and clashed with regime forces, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the blast hit a building housing the air force intelligence offices in the west of Syria's second city and was followed by heavy clashes.

"The explosion and the fighting caused dozens of deaths on both sides," it said, adding that part of the building had collapsed.

An AFP journalist in eastern Aleppo said the blast was loud enough to be heard across the city and some residents said it had felt like an earthquake.

A Syrian military source confirmed the explosion and said clashes were continuing.

"Gunmen blew up a tunnel that they dug [into the regime-controlled sector] and then attacked the area surrounding the air force intelligence headquarters," the source said.

"There are now ongoing clashes and the Syrian air force is hitting the positions of the gunmen in the area," the source said.

Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, Al Nusra Front, said on its Twitter feed that its forces, along with other rebel factions, had "stormed the air force intelligence offices and surrounding buildings".

Setting off explosives from tunnels dug into government-controlled area has become a favoured tactic of Syria's rebels, especially in Aleppo.

A similar blast from explosives planted in a tunnel under Aleppo's Old City in December killed at least seven government groups.

Rebels also last May detonated explosives under the city's famed Carlton Hotel, which government forces had been using as a base.

Fighting in Aleppo erupted in mid-2012, and control of the city — once Syria's main commercial hub — has since been divided between rebels on the eastern side and the regime in the west.

KIRKUK, Iraq — Concern mounted Wednesday over the fate of civilians in Tikrit where Iraqi forces were trying to trap Daesh militants on the third day of a huge offensive to retake the jihadist stronghold.

On Monday, around 30,000 Iraqi security forces and allied fighting units launched the biggest anti-Daesh ground operation yet in Iraq, closing in on Tikrit from at least three directions.

A senior commander said operations were focused on cutting supply lines to stop reinforcements and weapons from reaching the jihadists, who have controlled the city since June.

The next step will be to "surround the towns completely, suffocate them and then pounce on them", Lieutenant General Abdel Amir Al Zaidi told AFP.

Iraqi forces have yet to retake Ad Dawr and Al Alam, towns south and north of Tikrit respectively, but some units were already on the edge of the city, military sources said.

Zaidi said the operation launched Monday had already achieved results by securing areas further out in Salaheddin province and forcing Daesh fighters to regroup in urban areas.

"The first phase of the battle to liberate Salaheddin was successfully completed — and in record time — by clearing the areas in the east of the province," he said.

The Iraqi forces' advance has been slowed by suicide car bombs, roadside bombs and sniper fire, as Daesh fighters retreated to urban positions but seemed unable to fight back in open areas.

Revenge killings 

Government forces, Shiite militias and volunteer units have been supported by Iraqi jets and helicopters, as well as Iran.

"This is the most overt conduct of Iranian support," General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senators Tuesday.

"Frankly, it would only be a problem if it resulted in sectarianism," he said.

Sectarianism-fuelled revenge killings have been a feature of past operations against Daesh, however, and rights groups expressed concern Wednesday.

“Shiite paramilitary militias have often carried out reprisal sectarian attacks against Sunni civilians who are not involved in the hostilities,” said Amnesty International’s senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera.

“We are concerned about the possible recurrence and increase of such attacks in the ongoing operations,” she told AFP.

Some leaders and fighters have described the operation as an opportunity to avenge the June 2014 massacre by Daesh of hundreds of new, mostly Shiite, recruits from the nearby base of Speicher.

Some Sunni tribes have been accused of taking part in the massacre, considered the worst of its kind since Daesh swept through Iraq’s Sunni heartland and beyond in June last year.

Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi said as he announced the Tikrit operation on Sunday that residents should turn against Daesh.

In a speech to parliament the next day, he also said that “in this battle, there is no neutral party”, arguing that any Iraqi choosing neutrality was de facto siding with Daesh.

“Abadi’s statement that there can be no neutrality is worrying,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

“Any person who is not participating in hostilities directly must be regarded as a civilian, and protected against deliberate or indiscriminate attack,” he told AFP.

Smugglers

Many civilians fled the cities conquered by Daesh last year but the group has in some recent cases prevented residents from leaving.

A former army officer who gave his name as Abu Ahmad fled the town of Al Alam with his wife and five children on Sunday but he had to pay a smuggler.

“We left with a ‘guide’, a guy who knows the roads. We were five families, and paid him $1,000 each,” he told AFP by telephone from Kirkuk.

The Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk is only 100 kilometres away but the route they took was a huge loop through the desert that saw them cover eight times that distance.

“In the time it took us to get here, I could have gone to Hajj and back,” he joked, referring to the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

He said he decided to leave because he was afraid that homes would be shelled, that Iraqi forces “would not distinguish between armed men and innocent people” and that militias would kill civilians in revenge for Speicher.

Tikrit, a Sunni city located 160 kilometres north of Baghdad on the Tigris, is of both strategic and symbolic importance in Baghdad’s fight against Daesh.

It is the hometown of former president Saddam Hussein, the remnants of whose Baath Party have collaborated with Daesh.

Commanders have also said Tikrit is a stepping stone for an even more ambitious operation aimed at retaking Mosul, the large northern city which has been the main Iraq hub of Daesh.

RAMALLAH — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of "gangsterism" on Wednesday over its decision to withhold the transfer of more than $100 million a month in tax revenues it collects on the Palestinians' behalf.

Opening a two-day meeting of senior Palestinian officials, when overall ties with Israel and the possibility of suspending security coordination with the Israelis will be discussed, Abbas described the tax move as a provocation.

"How are they allowed to take away our money? Are we dealing with a state or with a gangster?" he asked a gathering of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's central council, its second-highest decision-making body.

Israel announced in January it was halting transfers, saying it was in retaliation for a Palestinian decision to sign up to the International Criminal Court, where it plans to pursue war crimes charges against Israel.

It is not the first time the payments, covering around two-thirds of the Palestinian budget, have been suspended, but in the past it has usually lasted only a few weeks. This time, the policy is unlikely to change until well after Israel’s March 17 election, once a new government is in place.

European and American diplomats are worried such a long suspension would push the Palestinian Authority to the brink of collapse, affecting stability across the occupied West Bank.

Already many of the PA’s 140,000 civil servants have had their pay cut by around 40 per cent and there have been bouts of unrest in Ramallah, Bethlehem and other West Bank cities.

Security coordination with Israel, a critical agreement dating back to the Oslo peace accords of the mid-1990s, may end up suspended simply because police and other personnel cannot be paid, Palestinian officials have said.

“How are we going to pay the salaries?” asked Abbas, adding that as well as the tax revenues, Israel owed 1.8 billion shekels ($450 million) in unpaid salaries to Palestinians working for businesses in Israel.

Relations between the two sides have grown dangerously brittle since the collapse of US-brokered peace talks in 2014.

If a decision is taken to suspend security coordination, it would have an immediate impact on stability in West Bank cities such as Hebron, Nablus and Jenin, where anti-occupation demonstrations are common.

As well as not transferring the tax income, Israel’s state-owned electricity company has cut power to Nablus and Jenin in the past 10 days to press for payment of $492 million it says is owed by the Palestinian government.

Earlier this week, the Israeli military mobilised 13,000 troops in the West Bank in a surprise drill, a reflection of the rising security concerns.

While some members of the PLO are determined to suspend security coordination immediately, the more likely outcome is a partial suspension or an increase in the threat to do so.

SANAA — The UN envoy to Yemen on Wednesday expressed "disappointment" over the refusal by the country's Shiite rebels to withdraw their fighters from state institutions and release the prime minister from house arrest.

The conditions were stipulated in a Security Council resolution seeking to help resolve the crisis roiling Yemen amid the power grab by rebel Houthis.

The UN envoy, Jamal Benomar, warned during a visit to the southern port city of Aden that no single party "will be able to impose" control over all of Yemen.

Benomar has been negotiating with rival Yemeni factions to get them to relocate negotiations aimed at reaching a political resolution to outside of the capital, Sanaa, which was overrun by the Houthis last September.

"The United Nations supports dialogue which doesn't give legitimacy to those who are resorting to violence," Benomar said.

He spoke shortly after meeting with embattled Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled from the Houthis' house arrest and is establishing his base in Aden.

Hadi has also called for relocating embassies from Sanaa to Aden, and on Tuesday, he proposed that negotiations take place in Riyadh, the capital of predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia — a proposal likeley to be rejected by Houthis.

After closing their embassies in the capital, western and Arab Gulf countries sent their diplomats to Aden to meet with Hadi in a show of support. The closure raised Houthis' fears of international isolation, especially as it came hand-in-hand with the Security Council extending sanctions imposed on two of Houthi leaders and their key backer, ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

On Wednesday, the Houthis opened up all roads leading to the US embassy in Sanaa, removing barricades, cement blocks and security vehicles they had placed around the compound.

In January, the Houthis, who fought their way last year from their northern heartland to Sanaa, declared they have taken over the country and disbanded the parliament.

Thousands of anti-Houthis demonstrators rallied Wednesday in Sanaa but were quickly dispersed by the rebels, who arrested 20 protesters, residents said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear for their own safety.

CAIRO — Egypt's state-sponsored Islamic authority warned women Wednesday against marrying fighters from Daesh terror group online, saying such unions would push them into a "circle of terrorism".

Dar Al Ifta, the body that issues rulings on Sharia, said it made the warning after noticing several Daesh calls on social networks for girls to marry its jihadists "through video conferences".

"Dar Al Ifta warns girls from adhering to these calls that go against sharia," a statement said.

Such actions would push them into "the circle of extremism and terrorism through illegitimate marriages that neither please Allah or his prophet".

The London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue said in a recent report that women joining the extremist group in Iraq and Syria are expected to marry its fighters, keep house and bear children.

Since December, Egypt has imposed restrictions on male citizens between the ages of 18 and 40 travelling to Turkey and Libya to stop them from joining organisations like Daesh, which has captured swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and is now present in Libya.

European nations are scrambling to halt a surge in young people wanting to travel to Iraq and Syria to fight with the jihadists.

And Egypt is fighting an Islamist insurgency spearheaded by a Daesh affiliate, Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, in North Sinai province that borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.

ISMAILIA, Egypt — Bulldozers push earth and dredgers spit mud round-the-clock at Egypt's Suez Canal in a race to quickly expand the strategic waterway for two-way traffic, a project trumpeted by President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi to revive both the country's damaged economy and visions of nationalist glory.

The government's goal of more than doubling annual canal revenues to some $13 billion in less than a decade, however, appears overly ambitious. Although more vessels will be drawn to the canal because there will be almost no wait time, any major increase depends on something unlikely to happen soon, analysts and shippers say — a large jump in European demand fueling greater shipping from Asia.

"It all depends on the trade volume between East and West, not the capacity of the canal," said Xu Zhibin, managing director for the Egyptian affiliate of China's state-owned COSCO, one of the world's top container shippers. "Volume will rise if the European economy begins to boom. As of now I don't think that there will be an increase in volume."

The expansion's importance is more long term, as it will better position the canal to keep its prominence in the future. In the short term, it appears to be more of a prestige exercise to boost national pride after four years of demoralising turmoil and to shore up the image of Al Sisi as the saviour of the nation. Egypt's economy has been battered since the 2011 uprising that ousted longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. His successor Mohamed Morsi, an elected but divisive Islamist, was overthrown by then-army chief Al Sisi during mass protests in 2013.

Al Sisi, who was elected president last spring, has risen on promises to stabilise the country and rebuild the economy. In a dramatic move after his election, he ordered that the Suez Canal expansion, envisaged as a three-year project, instead be completed in one year.

The military is directing the work, which involves digging a new waterway running for 35 kilometres parallel to the canal to end in the Red Sea, while deepening and expanding existing bypasses. Authorities say it is on track to open in August.

At the Suez Canal Authority's headquarters in Ismailia, films shown to journalists and potential investors lavish praise on Al Sisi with an almost Soviet-era extravagance. Men in the footage thank God for his arrival and elderly women call him "pure" and "good". In televised speeches in which Al Sisi has touted the canal, martial music plays over footage of special forces, tanks and fighter jets interspersed with shots of a vigilant Al Sisi directing officials and inspecting operations.

Bonds offered to fund the $8.5 billion military-led expansion were snapped up — mostly by individuals — in just over a week last autumn in a sale driven by nationalist fervor — and a 12 per cent interest rate.

The canal has long been tied to Egyptian national pride. Inaugurated in 1869, it connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, giving maritime traffic between Europe and Asia a short cut to avoid the long trip around Africa. In 1956, then-president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the canal from the British and French companies that owned it, a moment cherished by Egyptians as a defiant break from imperialist control. Egypt fought three wars with Israel around the canal, in 1956, 1967 and 1973 — when Egypt launched a surprise attack across the canal that is now remembered as the country's greatest battlefield victory.

The canal is also one of Egypt's biggest foreign currency earners, drawing in a record $5.5 billion in 2014. With the expansion, the canal authority projects it can double the number of ships transiting daily to 97 by 2023, boosting toll incomes to $13.2 billion that year.

But hitting that target requires not just a jump in global economic growth. It depends on fuel prices and the canal's fee structure, all factors that shippers weigh to determine whether it's worth taking the canal or the long route around Africa.

"If petroleum and thus fuel prices increase, the canal becomes more attractive, but now they are decreasing, which means the opposite is true," said Xu, of COSCO, which on average sends a vessel a day through the canal. "If the tolls, which are based on the old oil prices of over $100 a barrel, increase, some shippers will want to travel via the Cape of Good Hope."

The European Union, the destination for most ships passing through the canal, forecasts its economy will grow by a mere 1.7 per cent this year, and 2.1 per cent in 2016 — hardly enough to boost canal traffic significantly, shippers say. Industry estimates of container shipments through the canal project only three to 5 per cent annual growth for the years ahead. In 2014, container tonnage transiting the canal grew 5.5 per cent compared to the previous year, authority statistics show.

Still, with global shipping trends moving toward the use of ever larger, slow-sailing container ships, the canal stands to maintain an advantage for years to come with the container trade, already the largest single type of vessel to use it in both number and cargo tonnage.

An expansion of the Panama Canal due to be finished next year could draw some traffic between Asia and the US East Coast. But "the biggest, massive container ships will never be able to pass there as it can't accommodate them, so that's a natural advantage for Suez", said Greg Knowler, a Hong Kong-based shipping expert from US analysts JOC.

Although they don't plan to ramp up operations immediately, in general shippers welcome the plans. Denmark-based Maersk, the largest single customer of the canal, says it wholeheartedly supports the project, calling it a historic effort to enable more global trade and boost prosperity overall.

Keith Svendsen, vice president of operations, said the reduced waiting time would allow the company to save some fuel, but that over the long term transparent, properly adjusted pricing policies will keep traffic from taking the route around Africa.

"We're currently looking at whether there's a case for sailing some ships south, but our preference is to continue to go through Suez — it's a shorter route, better for emissions, and we have good cooperation with the canal authorities."

Tehran — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday said Israel creates the "greatest danger" in the region, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned against a nuclear deal with the Islamic republic.

In a speech on Capitol Hill, Netanyahu said Tuesday the nuclear agreement US President Barack Obama wants with Tehran "is so bad... it paves Iran's path to the bomb" and "would spark a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the planet".

Rouhani hit back on Wednesday in remarks to his Cabinet.

Israel "claims to speak of peace and warns of future threats while it is the creator of the greatest danger for the region," the Iranian leader said, quoted by ISNA news agency.

Iran and the so-called P5+1 group — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany — agreed in November to reach a political agreement by March 31 and a final deal before July 1.

But Iran now wants a single agreement that includes both a political framework and technical details.

"The people of the world are content with the way negotiations with the P5+1 group are moving forward... but there is only this occupying regime that is enraged by these talks", Rouhani said in reference to Israel.

"Americans and the people of the world are more intelligent than to listen to advice from an ever-warmongering regime," he said.

Rouhani accused Israel of possessing "many atomic bombs" and refusing to submit its "nuclear installations... to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency".

Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, has said it will not rule out unilateral military action against Tehran to prevent it from developing atomic weapons.

Israel is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which governs and restricts the development of nuclear technology, although it has IAEA membership.

MONTREUX, Switzerland — Simply demanding Iran's capitulation is no way to get a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday as he wrapped up three days of talks with a veiled dig at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kerry said he and Iranian counterpart Mohammad Jawad Zarif made some progress in their negotiations in the Swiss lakeside town of Montreux and would resume them on March 15. Kerry aides said many obstacles remained before a late March deadline for an outline accord between Iran and six world powers.

"There are still significant gaps and important choices that need to be made," Kerry told reporters after more than 10 hours of talks all told with Zarif.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu said in a speech in the US Congress that Washington was negotiating a bad deal with Iran that could spark a "nuclear nightmare", drawing a rebuke from President Barack Obama and exposing a deepening US-Israeli rift.

Kerry said politics and external factors would not distract from the talks, which aim to constrain Iran with intrusive UN access and verification of its nuclear activity and lengthen the "break-out" time needed for it to build any nuclear weapon.

"No one has presented a more viable, lasting alternative for how you actually prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. So folks, simply demanding that Iran capitulate is not a plan. And nor would any of our P5+1 partners support us in that position."

The other P5+1 countries are Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, who would all have to sign off on any deal.

Netanyahu has called for the powers to insist Iran dismantle its nuclear infrastructure and change what he described as its "aggressive" regional posture — an idea swiftly rejected by the Obama administration as tantamount to seeking "regime change" in Tehran. Israel and Iran have been archenemies since 1979.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, elected in 2013 on a platform of easing Iran's isolation abroad through diplomacy and a removal of sanctions imposed on it, said Tehran was prepared to accept greater nuclear scrutiny as part of a deal.

"If the basis of these negotiations is for increased transparency, we will accept greater transparency," he said in a statement. "But if the negotiations are trying to prevent the people of Iran from [enjoying] their inalienable right, in other words advancement in science and technology, it is very natural that Iran will not accept such an understanding or agreement."

Kerry reassures Iran's Arab rivals

Kerry also sought to address the concerns of Arab nations who fear that a nuclear deal may simply leave Iran with more cash and energy to pursue its regional agenda, including supporting Shiite Muslim groups in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon's political and militant movement Hizbollah.

"For all the objections that any country has to Iranian activities in the region, and believe me, we have objections and others in the world have objections, the first step is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon," Kerry said.

Asked if he thought they had made progress, Zarif told reporters: "We have, but a lot of work remains."

The six powers' foreign ministry political directors will meet Iranian negotiators in Switzerland on Thursday ahead if the next round between the two pivotal players, Kerry and Zarif.

Kerry will fly to Riyadh later on Wednesday and plans to meet the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany in Paris on Saturday, a senior US State Department official said.

US negotiator Wendy Sherman will brief Israel soon, the same official said.

Netanyahu's speech to Congress, in which he blasted the current diplomatic approach to resolving the dispute, may make it harder for the Obama administration to sell the potential deal back home.

Netanyahu argued that rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear arms, a deal would "all but guarantee" that it would one day get the atomic bomb, putting Israel, the wider region and US interests at risk.

Obama responded within hours saying Netanyahu had offered no "viable alternatives" to the current course of negotiations.

Netanyahu responded on arrival back in Israel on Wednesday by saying he had offered a "practical alternative" with his proposals for the powers' negotiating approach.

Iran and world powers are trying to put a framework agreement in place by the end of the month, despite the misgivings of Israel, US congressional Republicans and some Gulf Arab states. Such an accord would be followed by a comprehensive agreement to be completed by the end of June.

The aim of the negotiations is to persuade Iran to restrain its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from sanctions that have crippled the major oil exporter's economy. Iran wants sanctions scrapped swiftly, the powers only in phases.

The United States and some of its allies, notably Israel, suspect Iran of using its civil nuclear programme as a cover to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Iran denies this, saying it is for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity.