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Iran nuclear deal

Russian, Iranian top diplomats state progress on restoration of Iran nuclear deal

The eighth round of talks kicked off on December 27, 2021, the negotiators are set to finish the work by early February

MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/. The situation around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program was among the topics discussed by Russian and Iranian Foreign Ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. The ministers stated that visible progress has been reached in this area, the Russian foreign ministry said on Monday.

"The ministers discussed the situation around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program in the context of the ongoing Vienna talks on its restoration in the original well-balanced format that was approved by the United Nations Security Council. The ministers stated that visible progress has been reached in this important area," the ministry said.

According to the ministry, the sides also discussed the progress in the implementation of the agreements reached during Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Moscow.

The eighth round of talks kicked off on December 27, 2021. It is expected to be the last one as the negotiators are set to finish the work by early February.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (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.

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