A meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is held in Vienna, Austria, April 17, 2021. /Xinhua
China on Saturday urged all parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to immediately start negotiating the specific formula for the lifting of sanctions.
Wang Qun, Chinese envoy to the United Nations, made the appeal in Vienna after attending a new round of JCPOA Joint Commission meetings.
"China has drawn much encouragement that the Joint Commission has, over the two days, come back to its normal track with productive and constructive work," he said.
"China maintains that all U.S. sanctions should be lifted immediately," be it sanctions against Iran, or its long-arm jurisdiction measures on third-party entities and individuals, including those on the Chinese, he noted.
China believes that the Joint Commission should continue to focus on the "more substantive work" of sanction-lifting through the two major processes – the nuclear implementation and sanctions-lifting working groups' work, and the "proximity talks" with the United States, said the envoy.
According to Wang, China will continue to work with all parties concerned to push the U.S. and Iran to resume negotiations on the implementation of the JCPOA for early and tangible results.
Saturday's talks were chaired by Enrique Mora, deputy secretary general and political director of the European External Action Service (EEAS). Representatives from China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Iran attended the meeting, according to a press release from the EEAS.
The Joint Commission of the JCPOA resumed its talks on Thursday in Vienna, after a blackout struck the Natanz enrichment facility in central Iran. Iranian authorities have accused Israel of "sabotage."
(With input from Xinhua)