French President Francois Hollande Tuesday expressed hope that Western leaders' negotiations with Iran over its nuclear plan will lead to a lasting compromise to lift sanctions against Tehran.
At the United Nations annual gathering in New York, Hollande met his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani and held talks on negotiations between P5+1 countries and officials in Tehran to bridge differences over the number of centrifuges that Iran could maintain, Xinhua reported.
"Iran must implement concrete measures to demonstrate clearly that it will not have military nuclear weapon," the French president said in a statement.
Furthermore, both leaders discussed the situation in Syria and ways to combat terrorism, as well as prospects of bilateral cooperation once "confidence would be established via a final agreement on the nuclear issue".
Fresh round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 group -- Britain, China, France, Russia, and the US plus Germany -- started last Friday in New York. The talks are expected to last until Sep 26.
In July, Iran and the six countries agreed to extend negotiations over Iran's controversial nuclear programme for four months till Nov 24 as they could not narrow down the significant gaps on core issues during the past six months.
An interim deal, which took effect Jan 20, was designed to buy time for negotiations. Under the deal, Iran would suspend some sensitive nuclear activities in exchange for a limited sanctions relief.
