VIENNA, April 25. /TASS/. Political directors of Iran and the P5+1 countries - five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany - meet in Vienna on Tuesday to discuss the practical steps taken in line with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear program.
At the request of EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, the Secretary General of the European External Action Service (EEAS) Helga Schmidt will chair the meeting.
The Joint Commission holds meetings on a regular basis once in every three months. The agenda of the current meeting features the issues related to compliance with the objectives of the comprehensive plan.
In 2017, the first meeting in the series took place on January 10.
The Russian ambassador to the international organizations in Vienna, Vladimir Voronkov, will represent Moscow at Tuesday’s consultations.
The role of financial institutions in fulfilling the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program will most likely be the most acute problem at the session. "I think the problem will really loom large at the conference," Voronkov said.
He admitted that the unilateral sanctions the U.S. had imposed on Iran were creating a discouraging atmosphere at the talks.
At this moment, the unfreezing of economic relations with Iran after the lifting of multilateral sanctions against it is in full swing but the U.S. organizations seem to be very unwilling to do this job.
"The financial mechanisms that should back up this work - U.S. banks in the first place - are moving it forward inactively and inefficiently," Voronkov said.
Along with it, he stressed the highly unfavorable impact the U.S. sanctions against Iran were wielding on the talks. "The problems pertaining to bilateral relations stay outside the sphere of competence of the commission," he said.
The commission had the previous conference in Vienna on January 10, 2017. The sides stated at the end of it that all the steps under the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program were taken in strict accordance with the plan.
Vladimir Voronkov said later the discussion was fruitful and the parties to the consultations had stated progress in all areas.
The participants in the previous round of the consultations took up the problem of sanctions, with Russia speaking up once again against the imposition of any unilateral sanctions.
Moscow has always called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action a serious and important document for maintaining stability in the region and has voiced the conviction that complexities in U.S.-Iranian bilateral relations should not affect the successful completion of the nuclear deal.
The plan was adopted on July 14, 2015, in Vienna and an announcement on the start of its implementation was made on January 16, 2016. The document envisions the lifting of sanctions, which the UN Security Council, the U.S. and the EU imposed on the country in connection with its nuclear program.
In response, Teheran pledged to scale down its nuclear activity and to place it under international control.