DHAKA: With 10 days to a nuclear deal deadline, top US and Iranian officials spoke Saturday of substantial headway.

Iran’s president proclaimed that agreement was within reach. But America’s top diplomat said it was up to Tehran to make the decisions needed to get there, reports the Times of India.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said “achieving a deal is possible” by a March 31 target date for a preliminary accord that is meant to lead to a final deal by the end of June that would crimp Tehran’s nuclear programs in exchange for sanctions relief.

US secretary of state John Kerry was more circumspect, as he spoke to reporters after six days of negotiations in the Swiss city of Lausanne. The talks, made “substantial progress,” he said, but “important gaps remain.”

“We have an opportunity to get this right,” Kerry said, as he urged Iran to make “fundamental decisions” that prove to the world it has no interest in atomic weapons.

But in a rebuff of President Barack Obama’s latest attempt at outreach, Iran’s supreme leader warned against expectations that even a done deal would end the chill between the two nations.

Obama, in a message to Iranians celebrating the Persian new year this week, suggested that success at the talks could build on trust, proclaiming it was up to both nations “to seize this moment and the possibilities that can bloom.”

But Ayatollah Ali Kamenei gave Obama the cold shoulder. “Negotiations with America are solely on the nuclear issue and nothing else,” he told a crowd in northeastern Iran.

BDST: 0924 HRS, MAR 22, 2015