Abbas Araghchi and Helga Schmid Meet

Abbas Araghchi, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister, who has traveled to Vienna to participate in the third meeting of the Joint Commission of the JCPOA, had a bilateral negotiation with Helga Schmid, Deputy Coordinator of the European Union's Foreign Policy, on Friday morning, April 3rd. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that this bilateral negotiation was aimed at coordinating the agenda for the third Joint Commission meeting of Iran and the 1+5. Representatives from Iran and the six world powers will hold the third meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission on Friday afternoon at the Coburg Hotel in Vienna, Austria, where the implementation process of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the world powers will be discussed. IRNA had previously reported that Iran would also hold bilateral negotiations with some of the 1+5 countries during this meeting, although it did not specify which world powers would engage in bilateral talks with the deputies and political directors of Iran's Foreign Ministry. Meanwhile, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's Foreign Minister, who is in New York, will meet and discuss with John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, for the second time this week on Friday. The previous meeting took place on Tuesday and was about the implementation of the nuclear agreement, after which Mr. Kerry stated that progress had been made in these negotiations. Iranian officials claim that the U.S. has prevented the resumption of cooperation between foreign banks and Iran, an accusation that Washington denies. The recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding compensation from Iranian assets to victims of terrorism has also become another point of contention between the two countries. The Iranian government has emphasized that it does not recognize this ruling and that the U.S. should not seize Iranian assets. According to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, two billion dollars of Iran's frozen assets must be paid to the families of American victims of the 1983 bombing at the U.S. Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut and other attacks 'related' to the Islamic Republic. In this context, Zarif emphasized: 'We do not seek access to the U.S. financial system.' There is increasing pressure in the U.S. to prevent Iran from accessing dollars. Alan Eyre stated: 'We do not obstruct legal trade with Iran and transactions permitted under the JCPOA.'