Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell have held phone talks, during which they exchanged views on the progress made at the ongoing negotiations on the revival of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), held in the Austrian capital of Vienna, Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st May, 2021) Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell have held phone talks, during which they exchanged views on the progress made at the ongoing negotiations on the revival of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), held in the Austrian capital of Vienna, Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
According to the ministry, the officials spoke by phone on Thursday.
"Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and European Union Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell discussed the latest developments pertaining to the Vienna talks and the considerable headway made with the negotiations," the ministry said in a statement.
In the conversation, Zarif welcomed efforts made by EU External Action Service in the negotiations and stressed that the administration of US President Joe Biden had to abandon the approach advanced by his predecessor, Donald Trump, regarding the nuclear deal to make the Vienna talks "fruitful."
The Austrian capital has been hosting the in-person meetings of JCPOA parties since early April. So far, three working groups were created, with two of them working on lifting US sanctions and the nuclear issues, while the third is looking into the sequence of steps necessary to restore the nuclear deal.
Following the latest round of talks in Vienna, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister 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 China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and the EU. The deal required Iran to scale back its nuclear program and considerably downgrade its uranium reserves in exchange for sanctions relief. Washington withdrew from the deal under the Trump administration in 2018, reimposing Western sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.
