MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/. There is still risk that Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) group may miss the November 24 deadline for making the final agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Monday.

“If (the parties) focus on the resolution of the main issues that remain unsettled after New York, they can do it on time. If we keep walking on the fringes of the negotiation field, then missing (the deadline) can be quite real. I would not like to consider this scenario because the main point in any negotiation is the ability to focus on the result. If we start mapping out alternative scenarios, we will distract ourselves from the main point,” Ryabkov said.

“The date of the new round is being discussed. It was agreed in New York that the next two to three weeks would be spent to do the so-called home assignment, that is, to review what had been done and what needed to be done on a priority basis,” he said.

Ryabkov said this time would be used to prepare a meeting between Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

Ryabkov said that little time was left until the November 24 deadline. “Every passing week adds the feeling that we need to step things up, and this is what we are urging our partners, Iranians and other members of the P5+1, to do,” the diplomat said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in late September that his country and the P5+1 group could come to agreement before the end of the year.

Iran is earnestly committed to reaching a consensus and if the other side is committed as firmly, “we can come to an agreement,” Rouhani told the Rossiya 24 TV channel.

The interim nuclear deal made on November 24, 2013, called for taking the first step of reciprocal actions to prove good faith in a six-month period to be followed by negotiations for a comprehensive agreement, according to which the Western governments will acknowledge the Iranian nuclear program as civilian.