Vienna talks can reach their goal in coming weeks: Maas

“We think (the talks) can reach their goal,” he told reporters in Madrid after a gathering of the Stockholm Initiative, a group of 16 states working towards nuclear disarmament.

“I think we’ll get there in the coming weeks,” Maas added of the Iran talks that resumed in April in Vienna.

This is while the Russian Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov in a tweet pointed to the long pause until the start of the next round of Vienna talks, saying that expectations about the outcome of the JCPOA revival talks were not met until the anniversary of the agreement on July 15.

Referring to some attempts to include other topics in the Vienna talks, Mikhail Ulyanov in a tweet on Monday wrote, "In the context of #ViennaTalks, some analysts and officials advocate for addressing new topics such as regional security and missiles."

"An attempt to hit 3 birds with 1 stone. Unrealistic and counterproductive. The agreed goal of the talks is just to restore the original #JCPOA," he added.

Iran has already held six rounds of talks with JCPOA participants known as the P4+1 with the aim of salvaging the JCPOA in the Austrian capital of Vienna. Tehran has insisted that it would resume full compliance with the deal after the full removal of the sanctions that the previous US administration under Trump illegally imposed on Tehran after its unilateral and illegitimate withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018. 

It has already stressed that it would leave the Vienna talks if they take too long and if its legitimate demands as per the JCPOA are not met. Anyway, the other parties, especially the Europeans seem to be killing time as the new US administration is still sticking to the Trump-era sanctions.

Tehran has also said that it does see the sheer US return to the agreement as important when the sanctions are still in place. The current US administration has not yet fulfilled the promises Joe Biden made during his presidential elections campaigns to undo Trump's actions and return to the deal.

ZZ/5251448