article_snippet.sent: White House was stalling for time on Wednesday as talks with Iran over Iran nuclear program threatened to stretch into another day of overtime.
article_snippet.sent: Rotating between tough talk and a soft-handed approach, Josh Earnest said 'the time has come for the Iranian negotiators to begin to make the kind of serious commitments that international community, including the United States, will insist upon. '
article_snippet.sent: The White House had last week said that March 31 was a hard deadline for a preliminary accord, to be formalized by June 30, and that talks had dragged on long enough.
article_snippet.sent: As the clocked ticked down, however, The White House made an about-face and said U.S. would continue to work toward a deal as long as The White House felt progress was being made.
article_snippet.sent: Earnest said Wednesday that the United States' thinking 'hasn't changed' and it would not 'arbitrarily' or 'abruptly' end talks if it made sense to continue.
article_snippet.sent: At the same time, Earnest said, if the U.S. sense that 'the talks have stalled' the U.S. sense that 'the talks have stalled', in conjunction with the international community, would walk away.
article_snippet.sent: What would happen if an acceptable deal cannot be reached was unclear as the White House was won't to engage in hypothetical scenarios. '
article_snippet.sent: I am at this point reluctant to fast forward to what would happen at the end of the day if an agreement is not reached because they are still discussing an agreement right now as we speak,' Earnest told reporters.
article_snippet.sent: But yeah, if those negotiations break down and the Iranians walk away without demonstrating the willingness to make some serious commitments, then that does bring some of those issues back into play,' Earnest said Wednesday. '
article_snippet.sent: 's***show' at this point and said negotiators are poised to 'limp across' the finish line. '
article_snippet.sent: The Americans desperately needed something to come back to Congress with,' A source on the ground in Switzerland following the talks said, predicting that the Obama administration will make a 'face-saving concession' that will be announced late tonight or early tomorrow morning.