Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Vienna Saturday for meetings with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to assess progress on Tehran’s compliance with the Iran deal.
The meeting is taking place on the verge of the deal’s implementation day, when the U.S. will lift tens of billions of dollars of sanctions on Iran. U.S. officials this week suggested that the long-awaited date, the official beginning of the Iran nuclear agreement, could be just days away, and some reports have said there could be a weekend announcement.
In Vienna, Kerry will meet with Zarif and European Union High Representative Federica Mogherini on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the State Department said Friday.
“As we’ve said, all parties have continued making steady progress toward implementation day of the JCPOA, which will ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program,” the State Department said in a statement.
Earlier Friday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest would not provide a timeline for sanctions relief, saying it would only come once the International Atomic Energy Agency verified Iran’s compliance with the deal.
Earnest also said that that Iran’s 14-hour detention of 10 U.S. sailors earlier this week would not impact the U.S. decision-making involved in determining when to lift the sanctions.
