VIENNA: Negotiations between Iran and world powers aimed at salvaging a tattered 2015 nuclear deal resumed in Vienna on Thursday after a few days’ pause, with tensions high after Tehran made demands last week that European countries strongly criticized.

EU diplomat Enrique Mora, who chaired Thursday’s meeting of all the deal’s remaining signatories — Iran, Britain, France,

Germany, Russia and China — said afterward that he felt “a renewed sense of purpose on the need to work and to reach an agreement on bringing the (agreement) back to life.”

Mora said: “Whether that will be confirmed and endorsed by negotiations on the details, we will see in the coming days,” adding that the positive impression “has to be tested.” He said that it is becoming “more imperative” with time to reach an agreement quickly.

Mora said participants are approaching the task “with the realism necessary to get an agreement, because it’s difficult, because there are different positions, because some points are still extremely open.” He added: “We have to close them, and we don’t have all the time of the world.”

The US has participated indirectly in the ongoing talks because it withdrew from the accord in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden has signaled that he wants to rejoin the deal.

Washington plans to send a delegation led by Robert Malley, the special US envoy for Iran, to Vienna over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the US will send a senior government delegation to the UAE next week to meet with banks over concerns about Iran sanctions compliance, a State Department spokesperson said on Thursday.

The move suggests Washington is looking to crank up economic pressure on Tehran amid Western doubts about Tehran’s determination to salvage the accord.

The US delegation, which will include the head of the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, Andrea Gacki, will warn banks that have business with Iran and are not in compliance with the sanctions.

A State Department spokesperson said the US had evidence of noncompliance, and that the banks could later be sanctioned or penalized over their dealings.

Russia’s Ambassador to the UN in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told the TASS agency that Thursday’s talks had “removed a number of misunderstandings that had created some tension,” but did not elaborate.

The current round of talks is the seventh since they started in April.

Iranian officials have insisted they are “serious about the talks.”

“The fact that the two sides are continuing to talk indicates that they want to narrow the gaps,” said Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri.

The EU’s top foreign policy official Josep Borrell asked Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to “respond to worries concerning its current nuclear program,” which has intensified in recent months.

AP/AFP/Reuters