Blinken said that "the ball is in Tehran's court."

From the Vienna negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, which were halted last June

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned Iran again that time is running out for it to return to the nuclear agreement, considering that the ball is in the Iranians' court, while Iranian officials confirmed that Tehran will return to negotiations soon.

In a press statement after US-European talks in Pittsburgh, USA, Blinken said, "The ball is in their court, but not for long." He continued, "The available space is limited, and it is starting to shrink."

Blinken stressed that US President Joe Biden is ready to return the United States to the agreement signed in 2015 that stipulated curbing Iran's nuclear program, in exchange for lifting sanctions on Tehran.

Anthony Blinken said that America will not wait long for Iran to return to negotiations

Returning alone is not enough

And former US President Donald Trump decided in 2018 to withdraw his country from the agreement and re-impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic, which Iran is demanding to retract before it retracts the steps it had taken in the framework of freedom from obligations stipulated in the agreement.

Blinken said that "merely returning to adherence to the terms of the agreement at a certain stage will not be enough to benefit again from its benefits because of the progress achieved by Iran" in terms of its nuclear program.

He stressed that the US administration had engaged "in good faith for months" in Vienna in indirect talks with Iran about returning to compliance with the terms of the agreement.

Iran asked for the talks to be suspended in June due to the transition of the presidency from Hassan Rouhani, who supported the deal and sought to improve his country's relations with the West, to his successor, Ibrahim Raisi.

No date has been set for the resumption of talks, although Raisi has declared his support for diplomatic efforts to lift sanctions on his country.

Back in weeks

For his part, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed Thursday that the new government will return to the negotiating table in Vienna "in a few weeks."

"In a few weeks, we will be in a position to make an appointment with our friends in Europe, and then we can probably start negotiations in Vienna," Saeed Khatibzadeh said at the Normandy Peace Forum in Cannes, western France.

And he stressed - during an intervention on the Iranian situation - that his country "will not waste a minute to return to Vienna" in a seventh round of negotiations once the government analyzes in detail the previous six rounds.

He added that this analytical work would be completed "perhaps in a few days, less than a few weeks".

Saeed Khatibzadeh told the French newspaper, "Le Monde," earlier, "I do not think that we will have to wait as long as the Biden administration waited for our government to return to the Vienna negotiations."

"When President Biden came to power, how many days did it take before the Americans entered the talks again?", the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman asked, "Not more than 50 days have passed since the new Iranian government took office."

Talks resumed on April 6 in Vienna, 77 days after Joe Biden took office on January 20.

The new Iranian Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said Friday in New York that the negotiations "will resume very soon", without further details.

The nuclear agreement concluded in Vienna in 2015 provided for the lifting of part of the Western and UN sanctions on Iran, in exchange for its commitment not to develop nuclear weapons and a significant reduction in its nuclear program and placing it under strict UN supervision.

But after the Americans unilaterally withdrew from the 2018 agreement under President Donald Trump, Tehran has gradually abandoned most of its commitments.

The Vienna negotiations, in which the United States indirectly participates, are aimed at Washington's return to the agreement and ensuring Iran's respect for its obligations to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Chinese role

In the same context, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Thursday that he believed nuclear talks between Iran and world powers would resume "soon."

In statements at a press conference in the Qatari capital, Doha, Borrell expressed his belief that negotiations aimed at returning Tehran and Washington to full compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal will resume "within an acceptable period of time."

For its part, France asked China to urge Iran to return quickly to the Vienna talks. French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Logander said in a press conference via video technology that her country "is counting on China to use the most convincing arguments in its private dialogue with Tehran."

And it considered that returning "without delay" to the negotiations table suspended since last June, is "the only way compatible with our common interests."

"France, its European partners, other partners in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the official name of the nuclear deal) and the United States are united in calling on Iran to return without delay to the Vienna talks in order to conclude the negotiations quickly," she said.