TEHRAN (IRNA) — Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Seyyed Abbas Araghchi said in Vienna on Wednesday evening that good progress has been achieved at the Joint JCPOA Commission meeting about nuclear and sanctions issues.

Despite tensions in Gaza and Tehran active support for the Palestinians, the Iranian negotiator in Vienna seems more optimistic than anticipated. Araghchi who was speaking at a press conference after participating at the Joint JCPOA Commission said that the 4^th round of Vienna negotiations following two weeks of very intensive talks at every level and on miscellaneous issues was held and finished today. We had two weeks of very hard work and today we decided to sum up our work and for the remaining issues the delegations will return to their capitals for last consultations. Araghchi said:

We managed to proceed a lot during these two weeks so that we can now say that we have achieved the framework of an agreement. This framework is the structure of an agreement as the main text of the agreement and its appendixes are defined. Of course, the negotiations on the final text have not finished yet, as on many articles of the agreement we are still negotiating.

However, Araghchi emphasized:

Some key issues are still disputed and agreement on them have not been achieved, which is the reason why the delegations decided to have a few days’ break and return to their capital cities for consultations.

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All in all, I can say that good progress has been achieved, but we can still not say that the job’s done, although good progress has been achieved, and we hope next week after resuming the negotiations after the arrival of all delegations they will have made their decisions for reaching an agreement.

He concluded by expressing his hope that next week the negotiations will proceed “smoother and speedier”.

The 4^th Joint JCPOA Commission’s final round of negotiations was held in Vienna’s Grand Hotel. According to an IRNA Wednesday report, in this round of talks which were held in the presence of the Iranian and other JCPOA member states, the heads of the delegations reviewed the archived progress in the work of the commissions am exchanged viewpoints on the path ahead before reaching the agreement.