New assessments show negotiators in Vienna really move ahead

"Indeed, we observe some progress on two tracks: at the negotiating table and in public assessments of the situation at the #ViennaTalks. Now for the first time since June, these assessments contain cautious positive elements. That means that the negotiators really move ahead", Russia’s Permanent Representative to Vienna-based International Organizations tweeted.

Mikhail Ulyanov made the remarks in reply to a tweet by a Vienna-based journalist who said, "The State Dept Spox just told me that "there may have been some modest progress at the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth rounds, but it is too soon to tell if we are making real progress toward an understanding on mutual return to full compliance with the JCPOA."

Earlier on Thursday, the Iranian top negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani hailed the results of negotiations between Iran and the P4+1 group of countries including the UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany.

Correspondences were made between the two JCPOA parties on removing anti-Iranian sanctions and relatively good progress was made in the first few days of the new round of Vienna talk, he said.

“I hope that after a few days of break due to the end of New Year holidays, more serious work will be done on the issue of removal of sanctions by different parties,” Iran’s top negotiator Bagheri Kani added.

The new round of talks in Vienna began on Monday Dec. 27 with a focus on the removal of sanctions on Iran. The Monday meeting was followed by expert-level talks within the framework of working groups of sanctions removal and the nuclear issues.

Vienna talks with a focus on the removal of anti-Iranian sanctions would continue on Monday, January 3, 2022, after a short recess due to the New Year's holidays.

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