JCPOA meeting ends; parties agree to meet again next week

According to media reports, the delegations of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA known as the P4 +1 (including Germany, France, Russia, China and UK) ended their meeting on Wednesday afternoon. The meeting reportedly lasted for an hour.

In today's meeting, the heads of the delegations reviewed the progress achieved in the fourth round and the latest achievements in the drafting stage and exchanged views on the way ahead.

The delegations referred to the texts prepared as a result of numerous bilateral and multilateral meetings at various levels and expressed satisfaction with the general state of the negotiations and the course of the talks and stressed the need to maintain the current pace of the talks.

At the end of the meeting, the Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov tweeted, "The 4th round of the Vienna talks is over. The #JCPOA participants at their meeting today noted that “good”or “significant” progress was made and that an agreement is “within reach”. The Joint Commission will resume its work early next week. Hopefully the 5th round will be final."

Like the four previous rounds of the talks, the meeting was chaired by Deputy of European Union Foreign Policy Chief Enrique Mora and from Iran, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi led the Iranian delegation which also includes representatives from the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), Oil Ministry and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).

The Iran-P4+1 talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna are aimed at saving the JCPOA.

Iran has called for the removal of all US sanctions in return for its changing course to full abidance by the deal after the US pulled out of the accord in 2018.

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