With Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in power, the issue of starting talks with the United States has once again become central in Iran’s domestic politics. Some are in favor of initiating the talks, perceiving them as necessary for removing the sanctions and thus solving Iran’s current economic problems. Others are against it, believing that initiating such talks with the United States is useless and will only endanger Iran’s security-ideological interests. While the issue of direct talks with the United States has become a political matter in Iran, the talks are only likely to occur when there is a convincing chance of success to preserve the country’s interests with a consensus among Iran's various political forces.

From the perspective of the moderate Reformists, America, a superpower, is a key player in the nuclear negotiatons of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) with Iran, and the main driving force behind the creation of the current global coalition imposing coercive economic sanctions against Iran. In this context, they relate the improvement of Iran’s economic conditions to establishing talks and restoring relations with the United States.

In contrast, the conservative Principlists, beyond the economic conditions, mostly relegate the Iranian nuclear issue to a mere political-ideological matter in Iran-US relations, especially Iran’s regional policy, believing that the nuclear issue is only a pretext and the United States' main goal is to weaken Iran’s political role in the region and thus change the regime in Iran.

Striking a balance between these two trends, Rouhani's pragmatic-centrist trend frames the talks as an urgent economic-political issue, attempting to find a middle ground to initiate the talks with the United States. This trend is likely to focus on a specific, urgent mutual matter, i.e. the nuclear issue, which can simultaneously address the country’s economic, political and security problems and bring about actual benefit in the short term. With this approach, Iran can adopt some new transparency measures in order to convince the United States not to introduce new sanctions. This will put the talks in a political process, thus removing any possibility of direct conflict. Then, Rouhani can convince the political forces inside the country of the talks' benefit and take the next step to remove the existing sanctions through conciliatory measures.