WarSclerotic

Iran has been known to create provocations at sensitive times. Such was the case on Monday, when, as U.S. and Iranian officials met in Geneva, a senior Iranian official threatened that U.S. military bases are within range of Iranian missiles.

“In the event of a mistake on the part of the United States, its bases in Bahrain and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean will not be safe from Iranian missiles,” warned Majatba Dhualnuri, a Revolutionary Guard adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Until now, it was known that Iran possessed missiles with a range of around 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). If Dhualnuri’s statement is true, it means that Iran has missiles with a range of around 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles).

Meanwhile, as usual, world powers continued to be focused on talks with Iran. A senior Iranian official said on Monday that negotiations with world powers on a permanent nuclear deal could be extended for another six months if no deal is reached by the July 20 deadline.

U.S. and Iranian officials held talks in Switzerland on Monday to tackle ways of breaking the deadlock, which has raised the likelihood that the deadline will lapse without a deal.

The four-month-old round of negotiations ran into difficulty last month with each side accusing the other of making unrealistic demands, sowing doubt about prospects for a breakthrough next month.

Western officials say Iran wants to maintain a uranium enrichment capability far beyond what is suitable for civilian nuclear power stations. Iran says it wants to avoid reliance on foreign suppliers of fuel for planned nuclear reactors and rejects Western allegations it seeks the capability to make nuclear weapons under the guise of a peaceful energy program.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi spoke of a possible extension to the talks in remarks in Geneva to Iranian media on the sidelines of meetings with senior U.S. officials and the European Union’s deputy chief negotiator.

“We hope to reach a final agreement [by July 20] but, if this doesn’t happen, then we have no choice but to extend the Geneva deal for six more months while we continue negotiations,” Araqchi was quoted as saying by Iran’s state news agency IRNA.

“It’s still too early to judge whether an extension will be needed. This hope still exists that we will be able to reach a final agreement by the end of the six months on July 20.”

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the primary U.S. negotiator with Iran, met an Iranian delegation led by Araqchi in Geneva on Thursday.

U.S. State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said the “wide-ranging” session ran for over five hours.

“They will reconvene tomorrow morning and expect to meet all day,” she told reporters in Washington, as part of consultations before the next round of Vienna negotiations scheduled for June 16-20.

Araqchi, speaking later to the Iranian student news agency ISNA, described the atmosphere of Monday’s talks with the Americans as “positive and constructive.”

“We are at a critical juncture in the talks,” Harf said. “We don’t have very much time left. We think we’ve made progress during some rounds but as we said coming out of the last one we hadn’t seen enough made, we hadn’t seen enough realism.

“Hopefully these discussions, like the other bilateral discussions people have, can help get us to the place we want to be,” Harf said.

A French diplomatic source said officials from France and Iran would meet on Wednesday to discuss the Vienna negotiations. And Russian officials will have talks with the Iranians in Rome on Wednesday and Thursday, according to Iranian media.

“There are still gaps between Iran [and the six powers] in various issues and in order to bring our views closer, the other side must make tough decisions,” Araqchi said.

“The goal of these negotiations was to secure the Iranian nation’s rights in the nuclear issue for peaceful purposes,” he was quoted as saying. “We hope that we will be able to achieve this in the remaining time under the six-month nuclear deal.”

A second senior Iranian official, Takht Ravanchi, was quoted as saying that putting an end to sanctions was one of the issues discussed during the bilateral session with the Americans.

Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China included the July deadline for a comprehensive accord in the text of an interim deal they struck on Nov. 24.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Turkey on Monday for meetings with Turkish officials on economic issues and the ongoing conflict in Syria. Turkish President Abdullah Gul called Rouhani’s visit, the first official trip by an Iranian president to Turkey since 1996, a “turning point” in Turkey-Iran relations.