Iran nuclear talks to restart next week

The European Union's lead negotiator on Iran nuclear talks, Enrique Mora, said on Thursday that the latest round of discussions on the matter would start next Monday.

"#ViennaTalks to resume on Monday 27 December. The #JCPOA Joint Commission will meet to discuss and define the way ahead. Important to pick up the pace on key outstanding issues and move forward, working closely with the US. Welcome to the 8th round," Mora said in a tweet.

The announcement follows a brief pause on the negotiations after Ali Bagheri Kani, the chief negotiator for Iran, returned to the country last week - ending the seventh round of talks, according to CNN.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said earlier this month during a Council on Foreign Relations-hosted event that discussions over bringing back Iran into the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) were "not going well."

"It's not going well in the sense that we do not yet have a pathway back into the [JCPOA]," Sullivan said during the event.

The Obama-era JCPOA provides Iran with sanctions relief in exchange for Iran allowing its facilities to be inspected and getting rid of most of its nuclear program. The United States withdrew from the deal in 2018, and Iran has since stopped complying with its terms.

The seventh round of talks, which started in late November and ended in December, had come after over five months since the previous round of talks. Negotiations do not happen directly between the U.S. and Iran.

Officials are anxious to come to a resolution soon, with some signaling that time may be running out to get a deal from Iran.

"At some point in the not-so-distant future, we will have to conclude that the JCPOA is no more, and we'd have to negotiate a wholly new different deal, and of course we'd go through a period of escalating crisis," Rob Malley, U.S. special envoy for Iran, told CNN on Tuesday.