Statements from Iranian leaders, and from president-elect Joe Biden suggest a shared willingness to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, from which Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018, leading Tehran to expand its atomic program beyond the deal’s limits.

Biden wrote in an opinion piece for CNN published on September 13 that he would “offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy.” On November 18, the New York Times quoted Biden that he would “move quickly to re-join the nuclear deal…so long as Iran also comes back into compliance.” On Tuesday [November 17] and Wednesday, Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani made upbeat statements about “new opportunities for Iran.”

Since Trump left the deal – the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – in 2018, Iran has taken a series of steps beyond JCPOA limits, including enriching uranium to 4.5% rather than 3.67% and building up fuel stocks, which are now twelve times the permitted level. Iran has also started using a type of centrifuge barred by the JCPOA.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has stressed that Tehran would reverse these steps if US returned to its obligations under United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, passed in July 2015, which endorsed the JCPOA. This would see Washington lift sanctions as required by the nuclear deal. Zarif has suggested that Biden would need only to issue three executive orders to achieve this.

Iran’s urgent expectations are the easing of US energy and banking sanctions, introduced by the Trump administration and which have reduced Tehran’s oil exports, cut off its foreign-currency revenue and sent the economy into recession.

The New York Times reported on November 18 that Iranian diplomats had told the newspaper that Abbas Araghchi, a deputy Iranian foreign minister, had “tried to pass on to Mr Biden’s advisers through intermediaries Tehran’s insistence that the United States return to the Iran deal unconditionally before any talks resume.” The Times said the Iranian diplomats had said Tehran was “not interested in a temporary freeze and… [would] not stop enriching uranium or reduce its large stockpile in the meantime… [but] would return to full compliance with the deal when the United States does.”

Things may not be as easy as Iranian diplomats suggest. In his final months in office – he is ineligible to stand for a third term in June’s presidential election - Rouhani may be in a hurry to lift sanctions, but he faces fierce competition with domestic political rivals.

Rouhani said on Wednesday that his opponents, who hope to capture the presidency in June, are keen to receive the credit for lifting sanctions. “What does it matter who is the champion?” Rouhani said. “The real champions are the people of Iran.”

Another problem may lie in Trump increasing sanctions, which Republican Party hawks in Washington have argued will complicate Biden’s challenges. Trump is also pushing through the sale of Reaper drones and F35 advanced aircraft to the United Arab Emirates, giving Iran’s Persian Gulf rival a clearer technological military edge.

Wendy Sherman, the lead US negotiator at the time of JCPOA, has cautioned against expecting an early breakthrough. “This will be difficult, hard work,” she told American public radio on November 11. “And I would suspect that President-elect Biden and his team will first start by talking with our European allies, with France, Great Britain, Germany, with the European Union, and then with Russia and China, to see what might be the best way forward.”