Russia’s lead negotiator to the Vienna talks Mikhail Ulyanov is pictured at the Coburg Palais after a meeting between Iran and the P4+1 group of countries on December 27, 2021. (Photo by AFP)

A senior Russian diplomat says the participants in a meeting in Vienna between the US and Iran’s five partners in the 2015 agreement have voiced satisfaction with the positive trends in the ongoing discussions aimed at securing a removal of American sanctions against Iran.

Russia’s lead negotiator Mikhail Ulyanov said in a tweet on Wednesday that delegates of the US and the P4+1 group of countries - Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China - sat down for talks in Vienna on the current state of affairs in the discussions aimed at making Washington remove its sanctions and revitalizing the 2015 deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

All of them noted with satisfaction positive trends and businesslike atmosphere in the course of the ongoing negotiations, said Ulyanov, who serves as the Russian ambassador to international organizations in the Austrian capital.

Iran and the P4+1 group of countries on Monday started the eighth round of the Vienna talks focused on the removal of all sanctions imposed on Tehran after Washington unilaterally withdrew from the agreement.

The US is not allowed to directly attend the talks due to its pullout from the JCPOA.

In other tweets, Ulyanov said he held two separate meetings with US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley on the same day.

Close consultations and coordination between the Russian and the US delegations in the course of the #ViennaTalks constitute an important prerequisite for progress towards restoration of #JCPOA, Ulyanov said in his post.

Following the second meeting, Russia’s chief negotiator said Moscow and Washington maintain intensive and, I believe, useful dialogue in the course of the #ViennaTalks on concrete way and means of restoration of the #JCPOA.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Tuesday said the Vienna negotiations were moving in a good direction and an agreement was possible if other parties showed goodwill and seriousness.

On the third day of the talks, Iran’s top negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani and the European Union deputy foreign policy chief Enrique Mora, who chairs the ongoing JCPOA Joint Commission, held a meeting.

Bagheri Kani, who serves as Iran’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs, held another meeting with top delegates of the three European signatories to the JCPOA. The EU representative was also present in the meeting.

Speaking to reporters after the meetings, Bagheri Kani said the Vienna talks were moving forward with a positive trend.

Separately, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a phone call with his French, German and British counterparts and the Vienna talks were among the topics discussed, State Department said.

In a statement about the call, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said they discussed their shared concerns about the pace of developments in Iran’s nuclear program as time ran short for Tehran to return to the JCPOA.

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.