Ned Price: Challenges continue despite progress in JCPOA negotiations

A US State Department spokesman has spoken of progress in talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal. Ned Price, however, said challenges remain and there is no timetable for the completion of the sixth round.

The sixth round of Joint Commission talks for the US' return to the nuclear deal began in Vienna on Saturday, June 12 (June 11) and is still ongoing.

Despite positive assessments of these talks by Russian envoy Mikhail Ulyanov, European Union political envoy Enrique Moura, and even statements by Abbas Araghchi, Iran's chief negotiator in the Vienna talks, US State Department spokesman Ned Price speaks of challenges that remain unresolved.

Reuters, in a report from Washington, has addressed the statements of US State Department spokesman Ned Price regarding the JCPOA Joint Commission talks in Vienna. Price spoke of progress made in this round of negotiations.

A State Department spokesman said there were still challenging questions about reaching an agreement. Asked how long he thought the talks would last, Price said, “I don’t have a timetable for a sixth round of these talks.”

Before him, Abbas Araqchi, the Deputy Foreign Minister for Politics of the Islamic Republic, who is leading the Iranian negotiating team in these talks, had said that the negotiating parties have never been this close to reaching an agreement in the past two months.

While expressing optimism about the possibility of reaching an agreement before the end of the Rouhani administration's term, he also spoke about the possibility of continuing these negotiations.

Araghchi has emphasized that the progress of the negotiations is not directly related to the presidential elections in Iran. He has not even ruled out the possibility of the future government continuing the negotiations.

Although a detailed explanation of the issues at stake has not been made available to the media, diplomats participating in the talks have referred to the "stages of implementation" of the agreement.

On the one hand, the issue is about determining the steps that Iran must take to return to its obligations under the JCPOA, and on the other hand, the issue is about the sanctions that the United States must lift.

Source: DW