About five months after Ebrahim Raisi was elected as the president of Iran, it appears that the Islamic Republic and western powers have finally agreed to resume stalled talks in Vienna on November 29 about reviving the nuclear deal. However, following this announcement, Iranian officials have expressed serious doubts with representatives from the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China about whether it is worth engaging in talks given how the Trump administration abandoned the nuclear deal.

During Hassan Rouhani’s tenure, talks were close to reaching an agreement before President Trump abruptly walked away and adopted an extremely belligerent stance against the Iranian government—undoing whatever progress had been made under the Obama administration.

It is understandable to see why Iran feels uncertain about the US’ intentions. The moderate faction in Iran faced a lot of trouble convincing the hardliners that a nuclear deal would eventually work in Iran’s favour and improve relations with the West, however this has not been the case. As a result, attitudes towards engaging with the US have hardened over the years, especially under the new government headed by Mr Raisi.

The US has certainly lost credibility as this issue is not limited to the case of Iran, but was also witnessed in the earlier cases of Iraq and Libya. Therefore, it makes sense for the Iranian authorities to ask for guarantees from the Biden administration before they resume talks over the nuclear deal. Considering the damage to bilateral relations under the Trump presidency, the White House will have to consider some confidence building measures to bridge the trust deficit.

Given these obstacles, it remains to be seen if there will be any tangible outcomes following the talks in Vienna later this month. Expectations are low all around as many are of the opinion that just the resumption of talks should be viewed as an achievement. One hopes that this long-standing issue can be resolved in the near future given how it has adversely impacted the Iranian people economically, and also the rest of the region in terms of how it has complicated the geo-political situation.