Groundwork has not yet been laid for US to return to JCPOA

Ali Bagheri Kani, who held a five-hour meeting with Deputy EU Foreign Policy Chief Enrique Mora at the EU Headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, called these talks serious and constructive. 

"The lifting of oppressive sanctions against the Iranian people will be the main agenda of the talks," he said.

He called the Reuters news about the resumption of talks with the P5+1 incorrect, saying that Iran will continue talks with the P4+1, and the groundwork has not yet been laid for the Americans to be able to return to the JCPOA.

In response to US officials' remarks that Iran should seek answers to its questions from the United States, not Europe, Bagheri Kani said that the European Union is the coordinator of the JCPOA Joint Commission.  "We had such talks in previous periods [with EU], and now in the continuation of the same talks, he [Enrique Mora] plays the role of coordinator of the P4+1 and Iran, and these talks have been formed on that basis."

"Our talks with the P4 + 1 will actually take place in November," he added.

Earlier, in a tweet on Wednesday, Ali Bagheri Kani wrote, “I had a serious and constructive talk with Deputy EU Foreign Policy Chief Enrique Mora in Brussels about the essential elements of successful negotiations.”

“We have agreed to restart nuclear talks in Vienna by the end of November,” he said, adding that the exact date will be announced next week.

Iran and the remaining signatories to the JCPOA known as the P4+1 have held six rounds of talks so far with no results. The Western powers made excessive demands during the talks and the talks were postponed at the end of the previous Iranian administration under Rouhani until the formation of the new government in Iran under President Ebrahim Raeisi.

The new Iranian administration has vowed that it will return to the Vienna talks if they are result-oriented and can yield tangible results for Iran in terms of the removal of the sanctions and abidance of the parties by the JCPOA provisions.

In the latest development with regards to the talks, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Saturday that the nuclear talks with P4+1 will resume soon.

Tehran has also said that the Brussels talks between Iran and the EU need to take place before the Vienna talks with P4+1.

This is while Amir-Abdollahian has already said that the talks must have tangible results for Iran.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on October 5 that Iran will return to Vienna as soon as the internal review process is concluded with no preconditions. 

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