Iranian Assistant Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Ali Bagheri Kani, at the head of a delegation, arrived in Vienna this morning, with the aim of resuming nuclear negotiations.
After a four-month hiatus, diplomats from the United States, Europe and Iran are back in Vienna for another bid to salvage the nuclear deal.
According to the Islamic Republic of Iran News Agency (IRNA), negotiations will resume between representatives of Iran and other parties in various forms as of today.
Last night, Bagheri Kani wrote on Twitter, "The United States should seize the generous opportunity offered by the members of the nuclear agreement, and the ball is now in their court to show maturity and act responsibly."
Before the start of the negotiating sessions, each party began to put forward its conditions and vision for the negotiations, as the Iranian news agency confirmed, quoting a source in the negotiating delegation, that Tehran had not abandoned the request to remove the Revolutionary Guards from the US terrorism list, and that it linked the resumption of the implementation of the agreement with the United States taking the right decision, while Washington expressed Its willingness to reach an agreement if it notices a similar Iranian seriousness.
Washington welcomed the efforts made by the European Union, and expressed its willingness to engage in what it called a sincere attempt to reach an agreement.
The US special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, said he was returning to Vienna on the basis of what he described as the text proposed by the European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Iran's representative to the United Nations, Majid Takht Ravanchi, had held the United States responsible for the delay in reaching an agreement to resume the nuclear agreement.
Speaking at the UN headquarters, he said his country would retract its measures and resume implementation of the agreement when the United States made the right decision.
Rawangi indicated that returning to the agreement this time will discuss the text submitted by European Foreign Policy Commissioner Josep Borrell that details the lifting of sanctions, in addition to the nuclear steps needed to restore the 2015 agreement.
Borrell warned that after 15 months of intense and constructive negotiations, all opportunities to make important additional concessions are running out.
In a related context, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami, said that Tehran does not feel the need for a military nuclear program, and that there is no place for a nuclear bomb in its defense strategy. The security measures followed thwarted what he called sabotage operations that targeted nuclear facilities in the country.
And last June, the indirect talks brokered by the European Union between Bagheri Kani and Mali in Qatar ended without progress, and according to what Reuters quoted a US official after that, the chances of reviving the agreement diminished.
An Iranian official told Reuters that the Vienna talks would be "in the form of the Doha meeting", in which EU envoy Enrique Mora shuttled between Bagheri Kani and Mali, because Tehran refused to hold direct talks with Washington.