A meeting of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Joint Commission in Vienna, Austria
VIENNA, Dec 18 (NNN-Xinhua) — The seventh round of the Iran nuclear talks concluded here on Friday.
The latest round, started on Nov 29, brought together the representatives of China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Iran under the chairmanship of Enrique Mora, deputy secretary general of the European External Action Service.
The aim of the talks is to resume the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also referred to as the 2015 nuclear deal.
Mora briefed the press on the progress made during this round of talks.
“First, We have incorporated in our work, the new Iranian delegation. They have come to a negotiation that was ongoing before the summer … We established very quickly, very good working relationship with the new Iranian colleagues,” he said.
Second, the parties held in-depth discussions on a variety of sensitive issues. These included “the political positions, the new political sensitivities of the new administration in Tehran,” he said.
Moreover, Mora said: “We have incorporated some of the most relevant elements of the new Iranian positions … to the documents that we will still work on.”
Wang Qun, Chinese envoy to the United Nations (UN) and other international organizations in Vienna, said on Friday that after three weeks of intense negotiations and through the concerted effort of all parties, the seventh round produced an important consensus and a new document, laying a solid foundation for advancing the follow-up negotiations as well as for bringing the JCPOA back on track.
The Chinese envoy said he expected the important consensus reached in this round to be translated into a final agreement as soon as possible.
The goal of the JCPOA is to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement, which the U.S. withdrew from in 2018 under the Trump administration, unilaterally re-imposing sanctions on Iran. Tehran has retaliated by gradually stopping implementing elements of the deal since May 2019.
The next round of negotiations is scheduled to start before the end of this year. — NNN-XINHUA
