Iran is ready to resume nuclear talks immediately: foreign minister | Nuclear Power News

Iran’s foreign minister says Tehran is ready to restart nuclear talks if other parties are willing to do so.

Iran is ready to start a new round of nuclear talks, the country’s foreign minister said.

In a social media post, FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi said Tehran is ready to open talks on Iran’s nuclear program this week, if others show they are willing. However, the newly appointed partners acknowledged that increasing regional tensions make revitalizing the program a challenge.

“If the other parties are ready, we can restart the negotiations for this trip,” said Araghchi. Iran’s top official is expected to be in New York this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly, and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian is expected to deliver a speech on Tuesday.

“I will stay in New York for many days after the return of the president and I will have other meetings with the foreign ministers of different countries,” Araghchi said in a statement quoted by the IRNA news agency on Monday.

In July this year, moderate Pezeshkian won the presidential election. He vowed to resume negotiations with Western countries to lift sanctions in an effort to ease economic pressure on Iran.

Tehran and world powers signed a landmark nuclear deal in 2015 – called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – designed to curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Three years later, then US President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement, imposing new sanctions.

The composition of the cabinet chosen by Pezeshkian reflected his desire to re-engage with the West. Both Araghchi and Deputy for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif are considered to be the architects of the JCPOA.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who remains Iran’s final decision-maker, told the government in April that there was “no harm” in collaborating with the “enemy”.

However, tensions between Iran and the West are tempered by heightened tensions in the region.

Iran is aligned with an array of regional players at odds with Israel and its key ally the United States, including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen.

Tehran has also been strengthening its ties with Russia. The US and its European Union allies accuse it of supporting Moscow’s war in Ukraine by sending drones and missiles.

Araghchi categorically rejected those claims earlier this month, calling them based on “flawed intelligence”.

In his remarks on Monday, the foreign minister admitted that this is not the time to resolve the enmity with the US, but insisted that “its costs can be reduced”.