The U.S. side is apparently happy with the outcome of the April 2 meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna which resulted in a statement announcing another meeting for April 6, where U.S. officials will be “down the hall” from the meeting available for indirect talks with the Iranians. State Department spokesman Ned Price called the talks a “healthy step forward” and said that Washington “remains open” to a direct encounter with Tehran. Price told The Hill that the U.S. has agreed to participate in talks with European, Russian and Chinese counterparts to “identify the issues involved in a mutual return to compliance” with the nuclear deal with Iran. “These remain early days, and we don’t anticipate an immediate breakthrough as there will be difficult discussions ahead. But we believe this is a healthy step forward,” he said.
Jalina Porter, Price’s deputy, said at the regular State Department briefing yesterday that “when it comes to issues that are discussed, we’re going to talk about nuclear steps that Iran would need to take in order to return to a compliance with the terms of the JCPOA. And we won’t preview any specific sanctions, but we’ll definitely say that sanction relief steps that the U.S. would need to take in order to return to that compliance as well will be up for discussion.”
Russia’s ambassador to UN organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, reported after the Joint Commission meeting that the April 6 meeting will set the tasks for two working groups that have been formed. One of these groups will look at issues of lifting the anti-Iranian sanctions, and the other one will deal with Tehran’s nuclear commitments and their implementation.
