BRUSSELS: The Representatives of the United States to the Iran nuclear deal will convene in Vienna next week to discuss the possibility of lifting sanctions on Tehran, as well as the country's responsibility for further implementing the agreement, officials said Friday.

“One of the parties is telling that they, for the time being, prefer not to meet directly with the other party,” a senior EU official involved in the talks said, referring discreetly to the Iranians, who have insisted that the U.S. should end all unilateral sanctions as a precondition to renewed negotiations.

Friday's high-level online meeting was chaired by the Deputy Secretary-General and Political Director of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Enrique Mora, on behalf of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell. "Positive meeting today," Mora said on Twitter following the meeting.

The parties will reconvene in Vienna next week, with "substantial work ahead for a key opportunity" to bring the JCPOA back to life, he added. The participants recognised the prospect of a full return of the US to the JCPOA and "underlined their readiness to positively address this in a joint effort, according to the EEAS.

They also "emphasized their commitment to preserving the JCPOA and discussed modalities to ensure the return to its full and effective implementation". Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who attended the virtual session, said that there is no alternative to the JCPOA.

All parties involved should make every effort for the earliest possible return of the Iran nuclear deal to the originally established framework, Ryabkov said.

The participants paid special attention to the measures that should be taken by the US to eliminate previously committed violations of the JCPOA and to lift its sanctions against Iran, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a press release.

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