It is scheduled some bilateral and multilateral meetings will be held between representatives of Iran and the P4+1 group of countries -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- on Tuesday evening at the Coburg Hotel in Vienna.
Given that the eighth round of talks is still ongoing, there is currently no plan to hold a joint commission, and consultations are still being pursued bilaterally and multilaterally in various formats.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday before leaving Vienna for Tehran, Iran's chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said during the eighth round of negotiations good progress was made with regard to the removal of sanctions and subsequent verification of sanctions removal.
Representatives of Iran and the P4+1 group of countries began the eighth round of the Vienna talks on December 27 focused on the removal of all sanctions imposed on Tehran after Washington's unilateral withdrawal from the agreement. The US is not allowed to directly attend the talks due to its pullout in 2018 from the landmark deal with Iran.
During the previous round of the talks, the first under Iran's new President Ebrahim Raeisi, Iran presented new proposals at the negotiating table to help the talks move forward and later criticized the European signatories of the JCPOA for failing to follow suit and remaining passive.
Iran and the five remaining parties to the JCPOA resumed the talks in Vienna on November 29 after a five-month hiatus.
Iran and the P4+1 group of countries sat down for talks in the Austrian capital on December 9 following a pause on December 3, when the participants returned to their capitals for additional consultations on the two draft proposals that Tehran had put forward.
One year after Washington’s exit from the deal and the failure of the European signatories to uphold their commitments under pressure from the US, Iran took a set of retaliatory steps away from the deal in several stages in line with its legal contractual rights.
With a new administration on office in the US, Washington says it wants to rejoin the deal, but it has been dragging its feet in removing the sanctions on Iran.
Tehran has been firmly insisting that the US must first remove the sanctions in a verifiable manner, give guarantees that it will not leave the agreement again, and compensate for all the damages inflicted on Iran due to its unlawful pullout.
MP/
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