President Hassan Rouhani said today Iran is "serious" about negotiations on a comprehensive deal with world powers over its controversial nuclear drive, a week before fresh talks in Vienna.
"Iran is ready to enter negotiations with the P5+1 (group of world powers) to reach a comprehensive and final agreement," Rouhani told Tehran-based foreign diplomats in remarks broadcast live on state television.
"We are serious in this regard, as we were serious in the first step," he said referring to three rounds of intensive negotiations last year that culminated in a landmark, interim deal on November 24.
Under the accord, Iran agreed to temporarily cap parts of its nuclear activities amid suspicions in the West and Israel that its work masks military objectives despite its repeated denials.
In exchange, it received modest relief from crippling international sanctions as well as a promise by Western powers that new sanctions would not be imposed against it during the six-month duration of the interim deal, which came into effect on January 20.
In the next round of talks, Iran and the P5+1 group -- the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany -- are to strive for a comprehensive accord that would once and for all solve the decade-long standoff over Iran's nuclear drive.
Iranian negotiators and counterparts from the P5+1 will resume the talks in Vienna on February 18 in a process that is expected to last months.
Rouhani's remarks came a day after Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog struck a seven-step deal in separate but parallel negotiations that seek to enhance transparency over Tehran's nuclear work.
That deal included a promise by Iran to clarify its use of detonators as part of a probe into long-standing allegations that its past nuclear work, mostly before 2003, had "possible military dimensions".
