WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration has restored a sanctions waiver to Iran, a senior State Department official mentioned on Friday, as oblique talks between the United States and Iran on returning to the 2015 nuclear settlement entered the final stretch.

The waiver, which was rescinded by the Trump administration in May 2020, had allowed Russian, Chinese and European corporations to perform non-proliferation work at Iranian nuclear websites.

The waiver was wanted to permit for technical discussions that have been key to the talks about return to the deal formally recognized as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a State Department official mentioned.

However, the official added that restoring the waiver was not a sign Washington was about to attain an understanding to return to the deal.

“Absent this sanctions waiver, detailed technical discussions with third events relating to disposition of stockpiles and different actions of non-proliferation worth can not happen,” the official mentioned.

The waiver lined the conversion of Iran’s Arak heavy water analysis reactor, the supply of enriched uranium for its Tehran Research Reactor and the switch of spent and scrap reactor gas overseas.

After then-U.S. President Donald Trump give up the nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions, Iran step by step began violating the pact’s nuclear curbs.

The United States and Iran have held eight rounds of oblique talks in Vienna since April geared toward reinstating the pact that lifted sanctions in opposition to Tehran in change for restrictions on its nuclear programme.

The newest talks in Vienna have been “among the many most intensive that we had to date” a U.S. official advised reporters on Monday, including that there was some progress in narrowing down the checklist of variations and that now was the time for political choices.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis; modifying by Jane Wardell)