Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says Iran is firmly determined to reach a good, lasting and reliable agreement with the five remaining parties to the 2015 deal, as the eighth round of talks are ongoing in the Austrian capital of Vienna to revive the landmark US-abandoned accord.

Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks at a Wednesday session of the Iranian Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, during which he briefed the lawmakers on the latest developments in the talks between Iran and the P4+1 group of countries in Vienna aimed at reviving the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), by bringing the US into compliance.

The top Iranian diplomat said no direct talks have so far been held between the negotiating teams of Iran and the US in Vienna, and the two sides’ technical views are exchanged within the format of unofficial written notes and through mediation by the European Union coordinator.

During the four-hour meeting, Amir-Abdollahian answered the questions posed by lawmakers on sanctions removal, nuclear commitments, guarantees and verification mechanisms.

The US left the JCPOA in May 2018 under former President Donald Trump. The Vienna talks began on a promise by Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, to rejoin the deal and repeal the so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Biden, however, has so far failed to undo Trump’s own undoing of Barack Obama’s Iran policy, which led to the JCPOA in June 2015.

The eighth round of the Vienna talks between Iran and the remaining participants to the JCPOA began on December 27 with a focus on the removal of all sanctions that the United States had imposed on Iran after its unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA. The US is not allowed to directly attend the talks due to its pullout in 2018 from the deal with Iran.

In a Friday phone call with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the Iranian foreign minister described as positive the process of the ongoing US sanctions removal talks in Vienna.

Expressing Tehran’s deep distrust of US rulers, Amir-Abdollahian underscored the need for Washington and its European allies to take practical and tangible measures in order to reach a sustainable and reliable agreement.