Iran, P4+1 continue sanctions removal talks in Vienna

Iran and the remaining signatories to the 2015 deal are continuing their diplomatic efforts in the Austrian capital of Vienna aimed at securing a removal of the United States sanctions on Tehran and reviving the agreement that was abandoned by Washington.

Lead negotiators of Iran and the five parties to the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), held bilateral meetings on the second leg of the eighth round of the Vienna negotiations.

The Russian ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said in a tweet that he met with Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani on Tuesday.

“We discussed the main unresolved issues which need to be settled in the course of the #ViennaTalks,” the senior Russian diplomat said in a post on his Twitter account.

In another tweet, Ulyanov said in talks with Enrique Mora, the European Union’s deputy foreign policy chief and head of the JCPOA Joint Commission, they “exchanged views on the current state of affairs and possible way ahead.”

Iran and the five remaining signatories to the JCPOA — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — resumed talks in Vienna on Monday after the parties took a three-day break for the New Year.

Representatives of Iran and the P4+1 group of countries began the eighth round of the Vienna talks on December 27 focused on the removal of all sanctions imposed on Tehran following Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the agreement. The US is not allowed to directly attend the talks due to its pullout in 2018 from the landmark deal with Iran.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday before leaving Vienna for Tehran, the top Iranian negotiator said good progress had been made in the talks with regard to the removal of sanctions and subsequent verification of sanctions removal.

Iran's top negotiator: Good progress made in Vienna talks on sanctions removal, verification

Iran’s top negotiator says good progress has been made in Vienna talks with regard to the removal of sanctions and subsequent verification of sanctions removal.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh also said on Monday that the western parties to the JCPOA have realized that they have to back down from their “maximalist demands” during the ongoing negotiations.

One year after Washington’s exit from the deal and the failure of the European signatories to uphold their commitments under pressure from the US, Iran took a set of retaliatory steps away from the deal in several stages in line with its legal contractual rights.

With a new administration in office in the US, Washington says it wants to rejoin the deal, but it has been dragging its feet in removing the sanctions on Iran.

Tehran has been firmly insisting that the US must first remove the sanctions in a verifiable manner, give guarantees that it will not leave the agreement again, and compensate for all the damages inflicted on Iran due to its unlawful pullout.

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