Iran and U.S. to resume talks in latest bid to save nuclear deal

Diplomats from the U.S., Europe and Iran are set to return to Vienna after months of deadlock for another attempt to save their moribund nuclear deal, as high energy prices continue to stalk the global economy.

Robert Malley, the U.S.’s special envoy for Iran, said in a tweet that he’s headed to the Austrian capital to discuss a European Union proposal to rescue the landmark 2015 agreement. The accord slowly collapsed after Washington withdrew four years ago and reimposed sanctions on the Iranian economy, prompting Tehran to ramp up its enrichment of uranium.

The EU’s chief nuclear negotiator, Enrique Mora, and his Iranian counterpart Ali Bagheri Kani said that they would also rejoin the talks.

The 2015 deal curbed Iran’s nuclear program in return for relief from sweeping economic penalties. Reviving the agreement would lift the sanctions imposed by then-President Donald Trump on Iranian oil exports, providing much needed additional supply to stretched energy markets.

The parties have failed on several occasions to end a standoff between Tehran and Washington over U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a Trump-era terrorism designation for the elite military unit.

It’s not yet clear whether Russia and China – which were also signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the nuclear deal is formally known – will also convene in Vienna.

“Our expectations are in check,” Malley said in his tweet. Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, which reflects the views of the country’s political establishment, said that Bagheri Kani’s visit did not amount to an automatic endorsement of the latest EU effort to bridge differences.

Last week, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said that he had “put on the table a text” that addresses sanctions removal in “precise detail,” and he urged the sides to make a decision immediately to rescue the pact.