Iran has decided to resume talks with the P4+1 in Vienna to revive the Joint comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said.
In an interview with France24 on Saturday, Khatibzadeh said that Tehran launched two processes of reviewing outcomes of the previous six rounds of talks in Vienna after the new administration took office in early august.
The first process has been completed, based on which Iran decided to resume the nuclear deal talks, and the second process will soon reach a conclusion, he added.
The new administration is currently trying to review all the details of the Vienna talks, which were conducted under former President Hassan Rouhani’s government, he explained.
“It (President Ebrahim Raisi's administration) is trying to find out the shortcoming and characteristics of the previous talks, and soon there will be a conclusion to the review process and we will be able to set a date for the new round of talks,” he noted.
The diplomat didn’t provide an exact date for the conclusion of this process, but he affirmed that it would be much sooner than the time US President Joe Biden’s administration needed to join Vienna talks.
Talks between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia in Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear accord resumed in April but have been suspended since June, when Raisi was elected president.
Meanwhile, the United States believes an “imminent” return to indirect talks in Vienna is necessary because the process cannot go on indefinitely, State Department spokesman Ned Price has recently said.
He made his remarks after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We think it is important for the parties to come back together, to continue, to resume where we left off in Vienna.”
“We have heard from the Iranians that they expect negotiations to resume soon. We hope their definition of soon matches our definition of soon. We would like negotiations to resume in Vienna as soon as possible.”
“We continue to believe the diplomatic path is open. We continue to believe that a diplomatic approach is the best means to verifiably once again ensure that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon with the permanent and verifiable restrictions that the JCPOA put in place,” Blinken stressed.
