TEHRAN - Helga Schmid, secretary general of the European External Action Service (EEAS), wrote on Tuesday that the parties to the 2015 nuclear deal are “united in resolve” to preserve the agreement.

“Just finished chairing #JCPOA Joint Commission. Important to see that participants are united in resolve to preserve the #IranDeal and find a way to ensure full implementation of the agreement despite current challenges,” Schmid tweeted after a meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission in Vienna.

The Joint Commission meeting was held while the U.S. is being isolated due to its illegal moves to extend arms embargo against Iran or return the UN sanctions against the country. The measures by the Trump administration are intended to completely destroy the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the European Union - the remaining parties to the JCPOA - as well as almost all the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council are struggling to save the landmark accord with Iran.

In a boost to Tuesday’s talks, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) last week agreed for inspectors of the UN nuclear watchdog to visit two sites which allegedly hosted nuclear activity in the early 2000s.

Iran agreed to inspection of the two places after International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Rafael Grossi made a trip to Tehran last week.

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, said on Monday on Twitter that “nuclear deal participants have a lot of topics to discuss”.

The Tuesday meeting was chaired by Schmid and Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister. Deputy foreign ministers and or political directors from Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran and Russia also attended the meeting.

Mark Fitzpatrick, an associate fellow of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said last week’s agreement on access kept "Iran generally in line with the rest of the world, against an isolated United States”.

NA/PA