The Vienna talks on lifting anti-Iran sanctions and revival of the JCPOA kicked off on Monday and came to an end on Friday after five days of discussions among representatives from Iran, Europe, and the P4+1, namely Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany.
The seventh round of talks in Vienna is the first of its kind since the beginning of President Ebrahim Raisi's tenure in August.
Following the Friday session of the Joint Commission meeting of the JCPOA, Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said that other negotiating teams are going to come back to their capitals for consultations, adding that the Islamic Republic expects the other sides to present documented and logical response to Iranian proposed texts.
As to the timing of returning to the Joint Commission meeting, Chinese envoy to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna Wang Qun stipulated that more works are needed and the negotiating teams have agreed upon returning to Vienna in the middle of next week.
Enrique Mora, the coordinator of the Vienna talks, described the negotiations as realistic, noting that the talks may bear fruit next week.
Iran's Proactive Presence
The Iranian government dispatched a team of 40 experts to the Vienna talks to turn the negotiation into an opportunity to pave the way for removing anti-Iran sanctions and urge other signatories to the JCPOA to comply with their commitments under the deal; however, some opponents of the Iranian government tried to resort to the number of the negotiating team as a financial burden for the Islamic establishment, ignoring that the presence of legal and economic experts in the talks can bring about more benefits for the Iranians.
As Russia's permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov wrote on his Twitter account, Iran's new delegation contributes to effective presence of Iranians in this round of talks and proves that they are completely serious to develop the negotiations.
The Iranian negotiating team has succeeded in presenting innovative initiatives, which have been pondered over for several months. The Iranian negotiators submitted two texts on lifting of anti-Iran sanctions and Tehran's return to its commitments under the JCPOA.
Asked about verification of sanctions removal, Bagheri Kani noted that the Islamic Republic has prepared three documents and the issue of verifying the removal of sanctions has been mentioned in the third document, but it has not been submitted to other parties so far.
West's Passive Presence
Unlike the Iranian team, who has attended this round of talks presenting initiatives, the Western parties have tried to resort to their previous claims and presented no plan to help revive the JPOCA.
The European diplomats claimed on the second day of the seventh round of Vienna talks that 70 to 80 percent of the draft for potential agreement has been completed so far, while the draft related to the result of six rounds of negotiations between the Rouhani administration and the other signatories to the JCPOA, but now the Raisi administration presents new suggestions for future consensus.
The European side is expected to understand new situation in Iran and it needs to come to a conclusion that despite the fact that the 13th administration in Tehran is supporting negotiations to find a way out of the situation on nuclear issue and sanctions, the Iranians have their own demands to discuss.
Britain, France, and Germany are also expected to showing their independence from the United States, when it comes to negotiating with Iran, but in fact, what has happened so far proves that Europe and the US are playing good cop, bad cop trick.
By Hassan Shokuhinasab
Translated by Abbas Nattaj
1424
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