The Biden Administration is set to start indirect talks with Tehran in an effort to bring the U.S. back into a deal on Iran’s nuclear program. The move is an attempt to overturn former President Donald Trump’s 2018 move to withdraw the U.S. from the accord in favor of placing sanctions on Iran.
Since the sanctions were put in place, Iran has violated several of them.
Iran and five other world powers currently in the accord met for a closed meeting in Vienna known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Russia’s delegate, Mikhail Ulyanov, said that initial talks were “successful.”
“The restoration of JCPOA will not happen immediately. It will take some time. How long? Nobody knows. The most important thing after today’s meeting of the Joint Commission is that practical work towards achieving this goal has started,” Ulyanov wrote to Twitter after the meeting.
President Biden said that he hopes to bring the U.S. back into the deal, but that to do so Iran must undo its violations.
Iran’s negotiator in Vienna was quoted by Iranian state television to say that because the U.S. withdrew from the deal first in 2018, the sanctions on Iran should be lifted before the deal is put back into place.
“Lifting U.S. sanctions is the first and the most necessary action for reviving the deal, Iran is fully ready to reverse its activities and return to complete implementation of the deal immediately after it is verified sanctions are lifted,” Iran’s negotiator reportedly said.
