Russia’s permanent representative at Vienna-based International Organizations announced that JCPOA member states held a meeting with US officials at Vienna on Thursday without participation of Iran in the meeting.

Mikhail Ulyanov Russia’s envoy in Vienna talks said that the traditional meeting of JCPOA members was held in the presence of US delegation without participation of Iran in the meeting.

“We had a targeted discussion on one of the most difficult issues on the agenda of the Vienna talks,” Ulyanov emphasized.

Earlier, officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran have already stated, “Now, it is the turn of Western party to show its seriousness to reach an agreement.”

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.

Following a JCPOA Joint Commission meeting between Iran and the five world powers (Russia, the UK, Germany, China and France) on December 27, 2021, the parties agreed to accelerate the process of drafting the agreement in the working groups.

Source: Iranian media