The US and Iran agree to groups to try to rescue the nuclear deal

Iran and world powers launched indirect talks in Vienna to save the pact signed in 2015

Protest against the Islamic regime at the Grand Hotel in Vienna / Photo: AFP

AFP and Reuters: The US and Iran agree to groups 

VIENNA. Iran and world powers held what they called “constructive” talks on Tuesday and agreed to form working groups to discuss sanctions that Washington could lift and potential nuclear restrictions on Tehran as they try to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

“We see this as a constructive and certainly welcome step,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. Your country is indirectly involved for the first time since Joe Biden came to power.

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In a video broadcast on Irinn, the public information channel, the head of the Iranian delegation, Abbas Araghchi, considered for his part that “as a whole, the meeting was constructive.”

The first meeting of the joint commission this Tuesday was “fruitful”, announced the Russian ambassador for international organizations, Mikhail Ulyanov, after a two-hour meeting of the members of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA): Iran, Germany, France , the United Kingdom, China and Russia, under the aegis of the European Union (EU).

“The restoration” of the agreement reached in 2015 and undermined by the US withdrawal in 2018 “will not happen immediately,” the diplomat tweeted. “But the most important thing, (…) is that the practical work to achieve this goal has begun.”

The discussions take place in a luxury hotel in the Austrian capital, a stone’s throw from another large hotel where the American delegation is staying.

The United States, whose envoy Rob Malley arrived in Vienna around noon, is being informed about its advance through the Europeans, as Tehran rejects any direct contact.

The start of these discussions “is an important achievement, showing that the United States, as well as Iran, want to break the inertia,” Ali Vaez, of the conflict prevention organization International Crisis Group, commented on Twitter.

While neither Washington nor Tehran say they expect quick progress, they described the exchange in positive terms.