TEHRAN – Preparatory meetings are underway in Vienna regarding the session of the Joint Commission on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), says Russia’s permanent representative to the Vienna-based international organizations.

“Preparatory meetings are under way today in Vienna in connection with the session of the Joint Commission on #JCPOA at the level of Political Directors to be held on 1 September,” Mikhail Ulyanov tweeted on Monday.

Ulyanov added, “Nuclear deal participants have a lot of topics to discuss.”

Earlier, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Vienna to attend the JCPOA Joint Commission meeting which is scheduled to be held on Tuesday.

Araghchi is set to meet with some of the heads of the delegations attending the meeting.

The meeting will be chaired by Secretary-General of the European Union External Action Service Helga Schmid and Araghchi.

Last July, after receiving a letter from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif over the non-adherence of European countries to the agreement, Schmid said the next meeting of the Joint Commission will be held as soon as the conditions for travel are available.

The meeting comes as the U.S. has illegally called for the reinstatement of the UN Security Council sanctions against Iran.

In mid-August, Washington officially informed the UN Security Council that it is demanding the restoration of all UN sanctions on Iran, claiming that the U.S. has the legal right to “snap back” UN sanctions even though U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal endorsed by Security Council Resolution 2231.

However, other parties to the nuclear deal, including Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, have voiced strong opposition to Washington’s push for sanctions on Iran.

In a tweet on Friday, Zarif lambasted the U.S. administration for its insistence on triggering a highly controversial mechanism stipulated in Resolution 2231.

“After thrice being rejected by SC, U.S. now threatens ‘sanctioning anyone & any entity that comes between US’ & ‘its snapback.’ Obviously, they don't understand law or UN. Maybe they can grasp this: You divorced the JCPOA in 2018. Your name on the marriage certificate is irrelevant,” tweeted Zarif.

U.S. President Donald Trump walked away from the nuclear deal in May 2018 and introduced the harshest ever sanctions in history on Iran as part of his administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran.

MH/PA