US says ready to work with Iran if Rouhani is serious

 
The United States is ready to work with Iran's new centrist president, Hassan Rouhani, if his administration engages seriously in efforts to resolve the long-running standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, the U.S. State Department said on Monday.
   
"Secretary (of State John) Kerry welcomes the Foreign Minister's commitment to a substantive response and to his agreement to meeting in the short term with permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany coordinated by EU High Representative (Catherine) Ashton to discuss the nuclear program," State Department Jen Psaki said.
   
Earlier Ashton said that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif would meet with his counterparts from Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany later this week to discuss Tehran's nuclear program, which Western powers and their allies fear is aimed at development atomic weapons.

Meanwhile, two senior U.S. senators - Democrat Robert Menendez and Republican Lindsey Graham - urged President Barack Obama to take a tough line against Iran in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly this week.            

Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Graham, an influential Republican on international issues, sent a letter to Obama urging him to restate the U.S. goal of not permitting Iran to achieve nuclear weapons capability and demanding verifiable action from Tehran in order to permit the possibility of a diplomatic accord.        


REUTERS