Ambassadors from European countries engaged in nuclear negotiations with Iran said that they will likely miss their June 30 deadline, while the sanctions regime that forced Iran to negotiate continues to erode, The Times of Israel reported Tuesday.

Gerard Araud, the French ambassador to the United States, told a panel at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington that it’s “very likely” that a deal will not be struck in the remaining time before the deadline, and that even if an understanding is reached, it could be just “fuzzy air.”

The German and British ambassadors warned that the sanctions regime was in danger of unraveling.

Speaking at the same event, German Ambassador to the US Peter Wittig warned that “if diplomacy fails, then the sanctions regime might unravel,” according to Bloomberg. He said that if Congress torpedoed a deal, various countries would stop complying with the international restrictions….

UK Ambassador Peter Westmacott similarly noted that several countries are already skirting the sanctions, and cautioned that unless the lack of a deal was “incontrovertibly” viewed as the Islamic Republic’s fault, the sanctions would likely be harder to uphold.

Reporting on the same event, The Los Angeles Times reported that the technical nature of the negotiations is now complicated by the fact that Iran can no longer “finesse” its commitments, and its negotiators are reluctant to commit to any agreements in writing. Two contentious issues are the Iranians refusing to allow inspections of military sites and demanding an immediate lifting of sanctions.

[Photo: AtlanticCouncil / YouTube ]