JCPOA Talks on Right Track: Iran’s Araqchi

Speaking to reporters after a Tuesday meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission in Vienna, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the negotiations are on the right track, although there are still challenges and painstaking details.

He also said two working groups focusing on the nuclear issues and the removal of sanctions would begin drafting the text of a conclusion, while the third one needs to discuss major issues including the verification of termination of the sanctions.

“We face tough challenges, but it is obvious that all delegations are serious. The Joint Commission decided to speed up the work to some extent. The ‘nuclear’ and the ‘sanctions removal’ working groups will start working after the Joint Commission (meeting). They have been tasked with starting to draft the final text,” he explained.

In another interview with Press TV in Vienna, Araqchi said all the sanctions imposed on Iran during the terms of former US president Barack Obama and his successor, Donald Trump, following the implementation of the JCPOA in early 2016 must be terminated before the US can return to the agreement.

Araqchi said Tehran’s position with regard to the landmark deal has not changed and will not, either, stressing that, “The United States must first lift all sanctions, and Iran will return to its obligations only after verifying the lifting of US sanctions.”

The talks began in Vienna on April 6 between Iran and the remaining members of the nuclear deal, namely the UK, France, Russia and China plus Germany.

The US left the JCPOA in 2018 and restored the economic sanctions that the accord had lifted. Tehran retaliated with remedial nuclear measures that it is entitled to take under the JCPOA’s Paragraph 36.

The current negotiations examine the potential of revitalization of the nuclear deal and the US’ likely return to it.