Is the Obama administration about to sign a compromising agreement with Iran on its nuclear programme?

According to an Associated Press report on Wednesday, the US government is close to signing a deal which will let Iran retain nearly all its uranium-enrichment centrifuges in return for limits on the amount of uranium gas and enriched uranium that it will be allowed to keep.

According to unnamed diplomatic sources, the Americans are anxious to reach a framework deal before the end of March.

Such a deal would be strongly opposed by Israel, which sees this arrangement as de facto acceptance of Iran as nuclear "threshold state". The US State Department would not comment on the details.

This report joins others in recent days on an impending deal between the US and Iran. According to another report based on European diplomatic sources, the US is now seeking a deal that will include assurances from Iran that it will keep the peace in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, where it has great influence.

Last week, a senior Israeli official told journalists that the positions of the sides were still too far to reach an agreement by the deadline. However, sources close to the prime minister are still concerned that the US administration will strike a last-minute compromise and have said that "the Americans and the Iranians have already compromised on 80 per cent of the issues".