Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Kazem Gharibabadi leaves a meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in Vienna, Austria, June 2, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

The United States believes an “imminent” return to indirect talks in Vienna over a return to the Iran nuclear deal is necessary because the process cannot go on indefinitely, State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday.

Price said a diplomatic path remained open and noted that Tehran had said it would return to the talks “soon.”

“We hope their definition of soon matches our definition of soon,” Price said. “We would like negotiations to resume in Vienna as soon as possible.”

On Wednesday, at a meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Iranian foreign Hossein Amirabdollahian was quoted as saying that the nuclear talks would resume soon, without specifying a date. Negotiations to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action have been frozen for several months, following the June election of the hardline Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s president.