Report: Negotiations on final Iran agreement to start in February

The next round of nuclear talks with Iran will take place next month in New York, the Associated Press reports.

The talks mark the first time negotiators from Iran, the U.S. and five other nations meet since the interim deal reached last year went into effect on Jan. 20. Negotiators are seeking to reach a final, comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program over the next six months.

The Obama administration is under considerable pressure to show rapid progress as U.S. lawmakers press for new sanctions that Iran warns would doom talks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned over the weekend that the talks “cannot succeed” if Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stands by his comments to the economic forum at Davos that Iran will not dismantle a single uranium centrifuge.

“If Iran stands by that statement, that means that a permanent agreement – which is the goal of the entire diplomatic process with Iran – cannot succeed,” Netanyahu said at his weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday. “Iran is basically insisting on preserving its ability to get fissile material for a bomb without in any way extending the time-line to a nuclear break-out.”

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