Iran N-talks aimed at reset, face major challenges

VIENNA: Talks between Iran and global powers restarted on Saturday with the goal of trying to restore a landmark agreement to contain Iranian nuclear development that the Trump administration abandoned in 2018.

Senior diplomats from China, Germany, France, Russia, and Britain planned to meet at a hotel in the Austrian capital.

Top Russian representative Mikhail Ulyanov said in a tweet that the talks would allow the participants to “exchange views on how to arrange further work in order to complete the negotiations successfully and expeditiously.”

The United States is not formally part of meetings that launched in Vienna earlier this year.

But the administration of President Joe Biden has signaled willingness to rejoin the deal under terms that would broadly see the United States scale back sanctions and Iran return to abiding by the limits on its nuclear activity contained in the 2015 agreement.

Diplomats say complicating factors include the sequence of the proposed measures, dealing with advances in Iran’s nuclear processing capability since the United States withdrew, and the presidential election in Iran next week.