EU, Russia, Iran take upbeat tone as nuclear talks resume amid skepticism  

Talks between world powers and Iran to revive a 2015 nuclear deal have resumed in Vienna after five months.

European Union, Iranian and Russian diplomats sounded upbeat about the talks Monday, despite Tehran taking a tough stance that Western powers said would not work.

Diplomats say time is running out to resurrect the pact, which then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, angering Iran and dismaying Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.

Monday afternoon diplomats from Iran and the five countries — known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — met at a hotel in Vienna. The U.S., whom Iran refuses to meet face-to-face, participated indirectly. 

Optimistic first day

"I feel extremely positive about what I have seen today," Enrique Mora, the EU official chairing the talks, said after the meeting. This is the seventh round of talks aimed at reviving a deal under which Iran limited its disputed uranium enrichment program in return for relief from U.S., EU and UN economic sanctions.

Mora told reporters the new Iranian delegation had stuck to its demand that all sanctions be lifted. But he also suggested Tehran had not rejected outright the results of the previous six rounds of talks held between April and June.

"They have accepted that the work done over the first six rounds is a good basis to build our work ahead," he said. "We will be of course incorporating the new political sensibilities of the new Iranian administration."

The meeting in Vienna ended a long hiatus triggered by the election in June of Ebrahim Raisi, an anti-Western hardliner. 

Tehran and Washington

The talks are effectively indirect negotiations between Tehran and Washington, with other officials shuttling between them.

Tehran's negotiating team has set out demands that U.S. and European diplomats consider unrealistic, Western diplomats say.

Iran has adopted an uncompromising position by demanding the removal of all U.S. and European Union sanctions imposed since 2017, including those unrelated to its nuclear program, in a verifiable process.

The Islamic Republic's top negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani also said the United States and its Western allies should offer guarantees that no new sanctions would be imposed in the future.

"It is a major achievement that all parties in the meeting accepted Iran's demand that first the situation of illegal and unjust U.S. sanctions ... should be cleared and then (we) discuss other issues and decide on those issues," he told reporters.

There was no immediate comment from the big powers on Bagheri Kani's remarks about the sequencing of topics.

Tensions affect inspectors

In parallel, Tehran's conflicts with the UN atomic watchdog, which monitors its nuclear program, have festered.

As Iran has advanced its uranium enrichment, the International Atomic Energy Agency says its inspectors have been treated roughly and refused access to reinstall monitoring cameras at a site it deems essential to reviving the deal.

"If Iran thinks it can use this time to build more leverage and then come back and say they want something better, it simply won't work," U.S. envoy Robert Malley told BBC Sounds on Saturday. "We and our partners won't go for it."

Since Trump took the United States out of the deal, Iran has breached many of its restrictions meant to lengthen the time it would need to generate enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb. 

Iran says it wants to enrich uranium only for civil uses.

Israel — which opposed the original deal as too limited in scope and duration — has said military options will be on the table if diplomacy fails.