Talks aimed at bringing US back into Iran nuclear deal

World powers held a fourth round of high-level talks on Friday in Austria aimed at bringing the United States back into the nuclear deal with Iran, with both sides signalling a willingness to work out the major stumbling blocks.

EU spokesperson Alain Georges Matton said outside the meeting that the experts are set to continue their discussions over solutions in working groups, while the EU is coordinating "separate talks with all participants and with the US".

The goal of all talks remains "The full and effective implementation of the deal by all sides and the US return to the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action)," Matton said.

The talks began in early April and Russian delegate Mikhail Ulyanov tweeted following Friday's meeting that there was an agreement about the process needing to be intensified.

As the U.S. is currently out of the deal, there was no American representation at the talks.

Diplomats involved are shuttling between the Iranian side and a delegation from Washington elsewhere in Vienna.

The U.S. pulled out of the landmark 2015 deal in 2018 after then-President Donald Trump said the pact needed to be renegotiated.

The deal had promised Iran economic incentives in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, and the Trump administration reimposed heavy sanctions on the Islamic republic in an unsuccessful attempt to bring Tehran into new talks.

Iran reacted by steadily increasing its violations of the deal, which is intended to prevent the country from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Iran began enriching uranium to a greater purity, stockpiling more than allowed and beginning to use more advanced centrifuges in an attempt to pressure the world powers remaining in the deal — Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China — for economic relief.

U.S. President Joe Biden says he wants to rejoin the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, but that Iran needs to return to compliance.

Iran, which insists it does not want to produce a nuclear bomb, has said it is prepared to reverse all of its violations but that Washington must remove all sanctions imposed under Trump.