TEHRAN – The Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) plans to meet in Vienna on Wednesday, Iran and the European Union said.

Seyed Abbas Araghchi, the deputy foreign minister of Iran for political affairs, announced in a statement that was published on his Telegram channel that the Joint Commission will hold a meeting at the level of deputy ministers and political directors of the 4+1 (France, Russia, China, the UK and Germany).

The meeting will be held via videoconference. Araghchi said he will represent Iran in the meeting.

Earlier on November 30, the European Union External Action Service said in a statement that the meeting will be held in Vienna.

“A meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will take place in Vienna on 16 December. The Joint Commission will be chaired on behalf of EU High Representative Josep Borrell by the Secretary General of the European External Action Service Helga Maria Schmid and will be attended by the representatives of E3+2 countries (China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom) and Iran,” the EU statement said.

According to the statement, the meeting will discuss ways to preserve the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“Participants will discuss ongoing work to preserve the JCPOA and how to ensure the full and effective implementation of the agreement by all sides, including in preparation of exchanges at Ministerial Level,” the statement said.

This is the first meeting of the Joint Commission after Joe Biden won the U.S. presidential election in early November. During his election campaign, Biden has said that he will join the JCPOA if he wins the election.

“I will offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy. If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations. With our allies, we will work to strengthen and extend the nuclear deal's provisions, while also addressing other issues of concern,” then-presidential candidate Biden said in an op-ed for CNN in mid-September.

Biden reaffirmed support for the nuclear deal after the election, saying he still stands by his views on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that were articulated in the mid-September op-ed. However, Biden said it would be hard to rejoin the JCPOA.

In a recent interview with The New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman, Biden addressed a variety of domestic and foreign policy issues, including the Iran nuclear deal, which President Donald Trump quit on May 8, 2018.

Asked whether he still stands by his views on the Iran deal that he expressed in the September 13 op-ed for CNN, Biden answered, “It’s going to be hard, but yeah.”

SM/PA