Representatives from Iran (right) and the European Union (left) attend a meeting of the joint commission on negotiations aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear deal in Vienna, Austria on December 3, 2021. Negotiations were suspended the day for European diplomats to review proposals by the Islamic republic, state media said. Photo: AFP

Talks on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are expected to resume on Thursday, France's foreign minister said, although he added that he feared Iran was playing for time.

"The elements... are not very encouraging," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian told a French parliament committee, referring to the seventh round of nuclear talks between Iran and major powers that began on November 29 and paused on Friday.

"We have the feeling the Iranians want to make it last and the longer the talks last, the more they go back on their commitments... and get closer to capacity to get a nuclear weapon," Le Drian said.

Under the 2015 deal struck by Tehran and six major powers, Iran limited its nuclear program in return for relief from US, EU and UN sanctions.

Then-president Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal in 2018 and reimposed harsh US sanctions, and Iran began violating the nuclear restrictions a year later.

While Le Drian and Iranian media reports said talks were expected to resume Thursday, a senior US State Department official said Washington did not yet have a confirmed date.

The indirect US-Iranian talks in Vienna, in which other diplomats shuttle between them because Tehran refuses direct talks with Washington, aim to get both sides to resume compliance with the deal.

However, last week's discussions broke off with European and US officials voicing dismay at sweeping demands by Iran's new, hard-line government under anti-Western President Ebrahim Raisi, whose June election caused a five-month pause in the talks.

A senior US official on Saturday said Iran abandoned any compromises it had made in the previous six rounds of talks, pocketed those made by others, and demanded more last week.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the presidents of the US and Russia - two of the six major powers in the deal along with Britain, China, France, and Germany - had a "productive" discussion about Iran on Tuesday. "The more Iran demonstrates a lack of seriousness at the negotiating table, the more unity there is among the P5+1 and the more they will be exposed as the isolated party in this negotiation," he told reporters, referring to the six powers.

 Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying it only wants to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.