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P5+1-Iran Meeting in Vienna to Assess Nuclear Deal | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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EU senior diplomat Helga Schmid (L), Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi (R) and senior diplomats from other six members of the P5+1 group meet in Vienna, Austria, on April 25, 2017. AFP


London-The seventh meeting of the Iran-P5+1 Joint Commission, which monitors the implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers, convened in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Tuesday.

The meeting of the commission tasked with monitoring the implementation of the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was headed by Secretary General of the European External Action Service (EEAS) Helga Schmid and was attended by senior diplomats from other P5+1 group of countries in addition to Iranian Deputy Foreign Ministers Abbas Araqchi and Majid Takht-e-Ravanchi.

One of the key issues that the participants were scheduled to discuss was Iran’s request to purchase 950 tons of concentrated uranium, also known as yellowcake, from Kazakhstan in a three-year period.

This is the first meeting of the commission since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on January 20.

The commission’s sixth meeting was held in Vienna on January 10 to discuss Washington’s extension of an anti-Iran sanctions law.

Speaking after a meeting with IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano in Vienna on Monday, Araqchi said the Islamic Republic had lived up to its commitments under the JCPOA.

“As the entire world knows and repeated reports by the agency have confirmed, Iran has always been committed to its obligations and carefully implemented the JCPOA,” Araqchi, who is the Iranian head of the Joint Commission, said.

He, however, emphasized that the other side had not fully complied with its obligations under the JCPOA.

For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday slammed the United States for violating both the spirit and the letter of the nuclear deal.

“We’ll see if US is prepared to live up to letter of the JCPOA let alone [its] spirit. So far, it has defied both,” Zarif said on his official Twitter account.

Iran’s Foreign Minister made the comments after Trump accused Tehran of “not living up to the spirit” of the nuclear agreement.

Notably, Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia — plus Germany signed the JCPOA on July 14, 2015 and started implementing it on January 16, 2016.

Under the agreement, limits were put on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for, among other things, the removal of all nuclear-related bans against the Islamic Republic.

The UN Security Council later unanimously endorsed a resolution that effectively turned the JCPOA into international law.