VIENNA, Austria (AFP) – International diplomats resumed discussions on Iran’s nuclear programme on Thursday in the “difficult endeavour” of resurrecting the 2015 deal between Iran and world powers, according to the chair of the talks.

The most recent round of negotiations began last week and were halted on December 3 after Western delegates accused Iran of reneging on earlier this year’s efforts.

The chiefs of delegations from the 2015 deal’s participants — Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran, and Russia — were present at Friday’s negotiations, which began about 12 p.m. (1100 GMT) and lasted a little more than an hour at the Palais Coburg luxury hotel.

In the following days, an American delegation aims to participate in the negotiations in an indirect manner.

“Delegations came with a fresh feeling of determination to work hard,” Enrique Mora, the EU official who is chairing the discussions, told the press following Thursday’s meeting.

This week, bilateral meetings and expert working groups are likely to resume.

“There are still various viewpoints that we have to marry,” Mora said, admitting that the conversations were “a really challenging undertaking.”

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna, told TASS that the meetings on Thursday “addressed a number of misconceptions that had produced some tension,” but did not clarify.

This is the eighth round of discussions since they began in April.

Following the election of ultraconservative President Hassan Rouhani in June, Iran discontinued them, and they were finally resumed on November 29.

According to US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, US envoy Rob Malley “will plan to join the meetings over the weekend.”

Price warned reporters that “the runway is getting very, very short for discussions” and that “we should know in relatively short order if the Iranians are going… to engage in good faith.”

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