Rouhani tweets, then deletes, news of nuclear deal
After tweet deleted, Zarif quoted as saying that a deal would not be closed by the end of the night.
By MICHAEL WILNERUpdated: JULY 13, 2015 20:33Iranian President Hassan Rouhani(photo credit: HO / IRANIAN PRESIDENCY WEBSITE / AFP)
VIENNA -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appeared to announce that a comprehensive nuclear agreement had been reached with world powers on Monday with a message on Twitter.But the tweet was deleted just moments later, as negotiations continued into their seventeenth evening here in Austria's capital.A comprehensive nuclear agreement "is the victory of diplomacy and mutual respect over the outdated paradigm of exclusion and coercion," Rouhani's message read. "And this is a good beginning."A similar message was released by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, but with less definitive language. "If #IranDeal reached," it read, "triumph of diplomacy means we all will have won when we all could have lost. Plain and simple; no spin needed."Iranian journalist thinks the nuclear talks will failRoughly forty minutes later, Rouhani's account tweeted the same message with more conditional language: "If" a deal is reached, he said, it "will be" a good start.Announcement of a deal had been expected on Monday, when the Joint Plan of Action, an interim nuclear deal, is set to expire for the fourth time in just two weeks.But Iranian press outlet ISNA quoted Zarif on Monday afternoon as saying that a deal would not be closed by the end of the night. The US delegation provided no comment on the progress of the talks throughout the course of the day.After two years of negotiations, and having reached a framework for a final agreement back in April, diplomats say they are closer than ever to a deal that will cap Iran's nuclear program for over a decade in exchange for sanctions relief.Israel opposes the deal in its current form.