This handout photo taken and released on May 1, 2021 by the EU Delegation in Vienna shows delegation members from the parties to the Iran nuclear deal - Germany, France, Britain, China, Russia and Iran – attending a meeting at the Grand Hotel of Vienna as they try to restore the deal. (HANDOUT/ EU DELEGATION IN VIENNA / AFP

Iran’s policy toward the nuclear deal and negotiations with world powers over how to restore it will continue, a top official said, amid expectations that President Hassan Rouhani will be succeeded by a hardliner critical of the accord.

Government spokesman Ali Rabiei said the policy of engaging with other participants including the US in the 2015 agreement was made by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and had backing from the highest levels of establishment. This won’t change when Rouhani leaves office, he said.

Iranians are scheduled to go to the polls on June 18 to elect their next president, widely expected to be cleric Ebrahim Raisi who is generally seen as hostile to engagement with the US.

ALSO READ: Iran talks seen by monitors as entering decisive phase

World powers are trying to broker an agreement between Iran and the US that will revive the nuclear deal abandoned by former President Donald Trump and ease sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s economy in exchange for it scaling back its atomic activities.