Iranian delegation in Vienna to attend JCPOA Joint Commission

An Iranian delegation has arrived in the Austrian capital in order to participate in the fourth joint commission meeting on implementation of the JCPOA.

News ID: 65032

Date: 19 July 2016 - 10:42

Headed by Deputy Foreign Minister and Iran's senior nuclear negotiator Seyyed Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian group arrived in Vienna today morning at 09:05 a.m. Tehran local time and is scheduled to discuss implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with representatives of the European Union as well as the 5+1 group of countries (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

The session will be held at 02:00 p.m. Tehran local time in Palais Coburg situated in the Austrian city of Vienna.

On the basis of the agreement reached during the first meeting of the joint commission held on October 18, 2015, representatives of Iran and the 5+1 hold a session in Vienna every three months.

Speaking earlier on Sunday at a press conference held Sunday on the anniversary of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Deputy FM Araghchi had said "the upcoming commission aims to remove all possible barriers to proper implementation of the deal by investigating technical dimensions.”

"Iran’s main concern in all joint commission meetings would pertain to fulfillment of obligations by the other party,” highlighted the official adding "several instances of lack of progress are observed in sanctions removal since the opposite side failed to provide proper grounds.”

This of course does not mean that we have no breakthrough in nuclear negotiations, senior member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team said. "Iran has seen developments in banking and financial fields after sanctions removal; we face some problems in communications with major banks, which is due to non-JCPOA reasons which have not provided the conditions for it to happen.”

"The Americans have failed to keep their promises,” he added, "we believe that the responsibilities of the other party have not been realized yet and in some cases they have created challenges for us.”

Araghchi underlined that any of the parties involved in nuclear talks willing to violate JCPOA, must pay its political costs.

According to Araghchi’s statements, it seems that the fourth meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission in Vienna will be of great significance in addressing the complaints of Iran with regard to sanctions removal.

Also last week, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Vladimir Voronkov had announced the holding of the fourth session saying "there are two issues that need to be addressed during the upcoming meeting on Tuesday.”

"These are the difficulties with enriched uranium accumulated during the enrichment in the pipes and other devices since what has been discovered exceeds the allowed limit of 300 kilograms while the second issue is heavy water,” he added.

All nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran were terminated after Tehran and the 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) reached the nuclear agreement on July 14, 2015 and started implementing it on January 16.