All news

Seventh round of talks on restoration of Iran nuclear deal begin in Vienna

On Sunday, Russia, Iran and China held informal consultations in Vienna to clarify the negotiating position of Iran’s new delegation

VIENNA, November 29. /TASS/. The Joint Commission of Iran and the five international mediators (Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, and France) gathered for a meeting in Vienna to discuss ways of restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program, Russian Permanent Representative to the Vienna-based international organizations Mikhail Ulyanov said on Monday.

"The meeting of the Joint Commission on JCPOA with the participation of the new Iranian team led by Bagheri Kani has just started," he wrote on his Twitter account.

On Sunday, Russia, Iran and China held informal consultations in Vienna to clarify the negotiating position of Iran’s new delegation, Ulyanov said earlier. Apart from that, other participants in the talks also held informal consultations.

The JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, was signed between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (Russia, the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France) and Germany in 2015. Under the deal, Iran undertook to curb its nuclear activities and place them under the total control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange for the abandonment of the sanctions imposed previously by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union and the United States over its nuclear program.

The future of the deal was called into question after the United States’ unilateral withdrawal in May 2018 and Washington’s unilateral oil export sanctions against Teheran. Iran argued that all the other participants, Europeans in the first place, were ignoring some of their own obligations in the economic sphere, thus making the deal in its current shape senseless. This said, it began to gradually scale down its commitments under the deal.

Meanwhile, US’ incumbent President Joe Biden has repeatedly signaled his readiness to return the US to the deal.

The Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has had six offline meetings in Vienna since April to find ways to restore the nuclear deal in its original form. The sides discuss prospects for the United States’ possible return to the deal, steps needed to ensure full compliance with the deal’s terms by Iran, and issues of lifting the anti-Iranian sanctions. The sides took a break in late June but the resumption of talks was delayed due to the presidential election in Iran and the formation of a new government in that country.