On Friday, the EU’s diplomatic service announced that parties to the Iran nuclear deal are set to hold talks in the Austrian capital Vienna.
In a statement written by the European External Action Service, the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is stated to convene again in a physical format in Vienna, with representatives from China, Russia, France, the UK, and Germany to participate at the meeting chaired by Enrique Mora, the deputy secretary-general and political director of the EU diplomatic service.
The parties will assess “the prospect of a possible return of the United States” to the deal and the means to ensure that all sides perfectly comply with the rules, according to the statement.
Since the beginning of the conflict between the US and Iran on the nuclear deal, EU representatives have made significant efforts to get the two countries back to the negotiation table.
Talks between the two sides indirectly resumed on November 29 after a five-month hiatus but stopped again for over a week because the participants could not reach an agreement,
The negotiations took a more positive direction after a new round of talks on December 9, according to European and Iranian diplomats.
Iran, the US, China, Russia, France, the UK, Germany, and the EU signed the JCPOA in 2015.
In return for dropping economic sanctions imposed against itself, Iran committed to limit its nuclear activity to civilian purposes under the agreement reached. This deal broke down as the US, under former President Donald Trump, unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to stop complying with the nuclear deal.
