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Secretary of State John Kerry and foreign ministers of other major powers were converging Saturday to lend their weight to the Iran nuclear talks after envoys reported progress in marathon negotiations to curb the Iranian program in return for limited sanctions relief.

After a third day of talks, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said late Friday that Kerry was heading to Geneva to "help narrow the differences" — just hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was the first to arrive Saturday, his plane landing before dawn as the talks neared a final, pivotal stage, telling reporters: "On the Iranian nuclear issue, I want a deal — but a solid deal — and I am here to work toward that end."

Fabius' brief comments conveyed a guarded tone compared to his public comments during the previous round of talks two weeks earlier that fanned talk of disunity among the world powers negotiating with Iran.

French diplomats believe the talks are in the final stretch, but the failure to strike a deal in the last round "taught us to be prudent," said a French official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted publicly on the matter.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced he would also travel to Geneva. The announcements followed a day in which diplomats appeared more and more optimistic that a deal could be struck.

As talks adjourned, a diplomat said Iranian Foreign Minister and top European Union diplomat Catherine Ashton had made progress on a key sticking point — Iran's claim to a right to produce nuclear fuel through uranium enrichment.

Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva as saying that Iran's right to uranium enrichment must be part of any deal.

Enrichment is a hot-button issue because it can be used both to make reactor fuel and to arm nuclear missiles. Iran argues it is enriching only for power, and scientific and medical purposes. And it says it has no interest in nuclear arms.

But Washington and its allies point to Tehran's earlier efforts to hide enrichment and allege it worked on developing such weapons.

Iran has insisted on that right throughout almost a decade of mostly fruitless nuclear negotiations. But Zarif last weekend indicated that Iran is ready to sign a deal that does not expressly state that claim, raising hopes that a deal could be sealed at the current Geneva round.

For the U.S. and Iran, the talks represent more than trying to hammer out a nuclear deal. In style and substance they are an extension of the historic dialogue opened during September's annual U.N. gathering, which included a 15-minute phone conversation between President Barack Obama and Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani.

The nuclear negotiations have included intensive one-on-one sessions between U.S. and Iranian envoys, offering opportunities to widen contacts and begin the long process of reconciliation after more than three decades of estrangement. For Iran, it also gives Rouhani's government a chance to show skeptical hard-liners that dialogue is possible with Washington without putting the country's Islamic system in peril.

Iranian hard-liners are suspicious of talk of nuclear compromise since Rouhani took office in September, fearing his team will give too much at the negotiating table and not get enough in terms of sanctions relief.

On Wednesday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said his country would never compromise on "red lines." Since then Tehran has publicly reverted to its original stance — that the six powers must recognize uranium enrichment as Iran's right, despite strong opposition by Israel and within the U.S. Congress.

Still, comments from Iranian officials in Geneva indicated that reverting to tough talk on enrichment may be at least partially meant for home consumption.