Is It the Final Round?
Is It the Final Round?
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the remaining signatories of the nuclear deal, so called the JCPOA, are reportedly to continue their talks on Monday and it is expected to be the last round whether both sides reach agreement or not.

TEHRAN (Iran News) –  The Islamic Republic of Iran and the remaining signatories of the nuclear deal, so called the JCPOA, are reportedly to continue their talks on Monday and it is expected to be the last round whether both sides reach agreement or not.

On Thursday, the European Union’s deputy foreign policy chief, Enrique Mora, said Iran and the five remaining signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement will resume anti-Iran sanctions removal talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Monday to discuss and define the way ahead.

“Important to pick up the pace on key outstanding issues and move forward, working closely with the US. Welcome to the 8th round,” he added.

Meanwhile, the European Union External Action Service (EEAS) also said in a statement that the 8th round of the JCPOA Joint Commission talks will be chaired by Mora on behalf of EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.

It added that representatives of Iran and the P4+1 group of countries — France, Germany, the United Kingdom, China and Russia – will attend the new round of the Vienna negotiations.

“Participants will continue the discussions on the prospect of a possible return of the United States to the JCPOA and how to ensure the full and effective implementation of the agreement by all sides,” the statement read.

Iran and the five remaining parties to the JCPOA resumed talks in Vienna on November 29 after a five-month hiatus, marking the first round of negotiations under President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration and the seventh overall.

Iran and the P4+1 group of countries resumed the talks in the Austrian capital on December 9 after being paused on December 3, when the participants returned to their capitals for additional consultations on the two draft proposals that Tehran had put forward.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also said on Thursday that the Islamic Republic would continue negotiations for the removal of sanctions imposed on the country in the Austrian capital with seriousness, emphasizing that Tehran will never give excessive concessions to the opposite side.

“We explicitly announce that we will pursue our serious negotiations in Vienna with goodwill and seriousness and with an eye on achieving a good agreement, and we hope that the other parties would also continue [the talks] with the same approach,” Amir-Abdollahian added.

He recommended that the five remaining signatories to the JCPOA should have no doubt that “if they want to give one concession and get 10 concessions [in return], the Islamic Republic of Iran will never accept such an approach.”

At the same time, Russia’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov pointed to the resumption of the talks between Iran and the P4+1 group of countries on December 27, saying that usually it is not popular to engage in serious business during the New Year, but the participants [in Vienna talks] do not want to waste time.

“In this particular case this is an indication that all negotiators don’t want to waste time and aim at speediest restoration of #JCPOA,” Russia’s lead negotiator to the Vienna talks tweeted.

In response to a claim that the U.S. and other world powers have determined a deadline behind closed doors for the Vienna talks, which will end “within weeks”, Ulyanov said the establishment of “artificial” deadlines would not be helpful.

He said in a tweet that representatives of Iran and the five remaining signatories to the JCPOA should aim at swift and successful conclusion of the Vienna talks.

While Iran is not eager to prolong the talks and it wants to finish the talks, the Western parties are also determined to end the talks very soon but Iran and Western parties have their own reasons to end the talks with good results. Tehran does not want prolongation of the talks because some people inside the country have tied the economy to the fate of the talks and end of the talks can save Iranians from this indecisiveness of tying their future to the outcome of the talks. By the way, the Western parties are in rush to end the talks with their favorable result because they are concerned that Iran may advance its enrichment to a point that it can produce A-bomb while the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic has repeatedly called A-bomb haram (forbidden) and it does not want to make bomb and the Westerners are trying to create an Iranophobia to dictate its own wills . So for this reason the Westerners have resorted to any claims and media hype to pressure Iran to accept what they want.

So it seems this will be the last round of talks unless both sides get closer to agreement and decide to continue the talks for reaching a fair agreement on details. The sooner the talks end the better the condition will be for Iranians as they can continue their path of progress and put an end to this indecisiveness in the country.