Russia says Iran to resume nuclear talks in due course

In late September, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian stated that Tehran would soon return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiations in Vienna.

“Participation in the Vienna Talks is voluntary. It corresponds to the interests of all participants, including Iran. We have no reasons to believe that Tehran is unwilling to continue the process. The return to the negotiating table is a matter of time, not in a distant future,” Ulyanov wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

In 2015, Iran signed the nuclear deal with the P5+1 group, which includes the United States, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Union. It required Tehran to scale back its nuclear program and severely reduce its uranium reserves in exchange for sanctions relief, including the lifting of an arms embargo five years after the deal was inked.

In 2018, the US abandoned its conciliatory stance, withdrawing from the JCPOA and implementing hardline policies against Iran, prompting the latter to largely abandon its own obligations under the accord.

Since April of this year, the JCPOA joint commission has held sessions in Vienna, which also hosted several informal meetings designed to prevent the agreement from collapsing after Washington’s exit. The sixth round of discussions ended on June 20.