Iran Nuclear Talks Expected to Restart in Early September

EU officials familiar with the situation say that they’ve been told Iran’s new Raisi government is ready to restart the nuclear talks in Vienna, which had been put on hold pending the inauguration.

The expectation is that they’ll be back at it in early September, though no date is yet set. EU officials indicated that they were hopeful for this, though the US has been talking down the chances of making deals with the more hardline Raisi government, before the first talks have even happened.

All indications from the Iranian side are that the new government is taking much the same position as the Rouhani government, seeking the same sanctions relief and assurances of the US keeping its end of the bargain this time around. Whether the US can promise that remains to be seen.

A big question for the new Iranian government is how it’ll approach the talks. The Rouhani government put the talks under the Foreign Ministry’s purview. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is expected to take the foreign ministry and likely the talks, though its not clear if the two are going to be tied together, or if Raisi is going to set up some other body like the National Security Council to oversee the process.

The US has said they consider it urgent to get back to the talks. At the same time, they have already made clear that promising not to return to the deal then unilaterally quit again isn’t politically possible.