VIENNA, January 21. /TASS/. Western nations participating in the negotiations to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program are poised to complete the talks within the shortest timeframe possible, Russian Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said on Friday.

"JCPOA participants (without Iran) and the United States have met to assess the situation at the Vienna talks. Western nations - as they typically do publicly - stressed the need to complete the negotiations as soon as possible. Russia shares this sense of urgency, but opposes artificial timeframes," Ulyanov, who leads the Russian delegation to the talks, wrote on Twitter.

On January 4, Russian Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told TASS that intensive informal talks were underway as part of the eighth round of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear deal, during which some progress was being observed. The efforts on lifting the US sanctions against Iran, nuclear issues and the sequence of steps to revive the JCPOA are in progress, the Russian envoy said.

The eighth round of talks kicked off in Vienna on December 27 and resumed after the New Year pause on January 3. The negotiations seek to restore the JCPOA in its original form and bring the US back into the agreement. Following a JCPOA Joint Commission meeting between Iran and the five world powers (Russia, the UK, Germany, China and France) on December 27, 2021, the parties agreed to accelerate the process of drafting the agreement in the working groups. This round is expected to be the last, as the parties intend to complete the negotiations by February 2022.