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LAUSANNE, Switzerland Down-to-the-wire negotiations to restrict Irans nuclear program and ease sanctions are ready to kick off under the pressure of a self-imposed deadline only two weeks away.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry arrived in Lausanne on Sunday evening and was to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday. Other members of the U.S. negotiating team, including Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, arrived earlier and were seen wandering the grounds of a luxury hotel where the discussions will take place in this lakeside city near the border with France.

After more than a decade of talks that gained momentum over the past year and a half, there is a last-chance feel to the latest round. The discussions have been stalled over the pace of sanctions relief, inspections and the size of Irans nuclear capacity.

The negotiations with Iran are being conducted by six world powers the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany. They have said that they want a framework for an agreement by the end of this month, leaving three months to work out some complex technical details.

Kerry said, though, in a CBS interview that aired Sunday that many of the technical differences have already been resolved.

By and large, most of the differences now are political decisions that need to be made in order to fulfill the promise of proving to the world that a program is peaceful, he said in the interview, conducted Saturday in Egypt, where he was attending a regional economic conference.

Kerry added that Tehran, to its credit, has thus far lived up to every part of the agreement we made over a year ago, referring to an interim agreement that has stalled parts of Irans nuclear program.

The talks are being held against the backdrop of a political firestorm in Washington, after 47 Republicans sent an open letter to Irans leaders warning that Congress would not necessarily go along with an agreement and that a future president could overturn it.

[Read: The misguided, condescending letter from Republican senators to Iran]

Kerry said a third extension of the interim deal is unlikely.

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Iran nuclear talks set to resume