Iran’s top negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani returned to Vienna on Monday after a two-day break for consultations, while the working groups were still discussing expert issues.
The talks are held among six countries with their particular national interests, with Russia and China having coordinated stances with Iran and the three European participants, i.e. France, Germany and the UK, adapting themselves to the new situation after a period of unconstructive role playing in the early weeks of the eighth round of the talks.
Meanwhile, the United States has indirectly taking part in the talks due to Iran’s objection, arguing that Washington has walked away from the deal in question and it is not in a position to sit beside the participants within the JCPOA framework.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or simply the JCPOA, is a nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers that was struck in 2015, but the US ceased its participation in 2018 and resumed all sanctions previously removed thanks to the deal.
The European Union, represented by its deputy foreign policy chief Enrique Mora, is playing an impartial role as the coordinator of the JCPOA.
The talks have reached a phase of “how to turn the agreed-in-principle issues to words and include them in drafts”, a source familiar with the talks told IRNA’s correspondent in Vienna.
He also said that many parentheses on sanctions and nuclear issues have been removed and the teams are increasingly working on the third appendix on the implementation and sequence [of the potential deal].
He said that by the term sequence he meant the measure Iran and the US should take to have the 2015 deal completely implemented and this phase was the most boring, lengthy and difficult stage of the talks which is otherwise necessary to fulfill the objectives.
Russia and China want the talks to be successful, as Moscow sees itself as beneficiary in the JCPOA and Beijing believes it will be an opening in its economic relations in Iran.
The European participants of the JCPOA, on the other side, have failed to maintain a balance with regards to the international agreement even in their gesture of advocating for international rules and non-proliferation concerns.
That is why the first and foremost interest of the US and E3 in reviving the JCPOA is to regain their damaged reputations.
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