President Joe Biden said on Friday that he believes Iran has shown to be serious in the ongoing negotiations to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna, but it is unclear what Tehran will to do to return to full compliance with the nuclear agreement
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th May, 2021) President Joe Biden said on Friday that he believes Iran has shown to be serious in the ongoing negotiations to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna, but it is unclear what Tehran will to do to return to full compliance with the nuclear agreement.
"Yes, but how serious and what they're prepared to do is a different story, but we're still talking," Biden said when asked if he believes Iran has taken seriously the ongoing negotiations in Vienna.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in later remarks that the Biden administration considers it a good sign that discussions with Iran are continuing and progress was made during the latest round of talks Vienna.
Following the latest round of talks in Vienna, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said the parties agreed to begin holding expert and technical consultations, as well as drafting an agreement.
In 2015, Iran signed the JCPOA with the United States, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom as well as the European Union. The deal required Iran to scale back its nuclear program and considerably downgrade its uranium reserves in exchange for sanctions relief.
In 2018, the United States withdrew from the JCPOA and implemented hard-line policies against Tehran, which retaliated by gradually abandoning its commitments under the deal a year later.
The Austrian capital has been hosting the in-person meetings of the committee, as well as informal meetings in between. So far, three working groups have been created, with two of them working on lifting the US sanctions and the nuclear issues, while the third is looking into the sequence of steps necessary to restore the nuclear deal.
