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The Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the Iran nuclear deal—resumed talks in Vienna on Tuesday, with the lifting of sanctions on Iran and nuclear implementation measures at the center of the agenda.

Representatives from Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the European Union met for an hour. Although not at the session, the US envoy remained a few meters away from the venue, which was understood as a gesture of willingness to rescue the agreement.

Several participants qualified the meeting as positive, including Russia's permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, who stressed the "success" of the meeting.

"The meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission was successful. Two expert groups [on sanctions lifting and nuclear issues] were tasked with identifying concrete steps taken by Washington and Tehran to restore the full implementation of the JCPOA. The groups started work immediately," Ulyanov wrote on Twitter.

In turn, the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying, "France welcomes today's resumption of talks in Vienna on the nuclear dossier. The ongoing discussions should make it possible to reach in the immediate future an agreement on the actions necessary for the full return of Iran and the U.S. to compliance with the nuclear pact."