MAKE GOODWILL MOVE FIRST BEFORE NUKE TALKS, IRAN TELLS U.S.

The status of talks to renew the 2015 Iran nuclear deal hung in the air on Friday, with a US offer to come back to the table met by Iranian demands that US sanctions have to be lifted before that can happen, Eliyahu Kamishr and Frashid Motahari reported for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

"There can be no nuclear meeting together with the US because the US has pulled out of the Vienna nuclear agreement," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh wrote on Twitter. Iran wouldn't react on what was "yesterday" but on concrete actions, Khatibzadeh said.

Nevertheless, the offer to accept a European Union (EU) invitation for a return to talks from the administration of US President Joe Biden is a significant step, after four years during which the Trump administration pulled out of the deal and piled sanctions on Iran.

The deal was reached between the two countries - along with Britain, China, France, Russia and the EU - in 2015 in an effort to convince Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

The deal lifted sanctions in exchange for Iran limiting itself to civilian nuclear applications. But Trump said the deal still left Iran with a pathway to weapons eventually and didn't do enough to keep it from interfering in the region.

The tough approach was applauded by Middle Eastern countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia, which see Iran as a regional rival.

Since then, Iran has slowly backed out of the deal itself, and this week said it would limit cooperation with international nuclear inspectors. But it has left a door open to talks.

On Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted the hashtag #CommitActMeet, which the Foreign Ministry explained on its Farsi Instagram page: If the US committed to its obligations and lifted sanctions, Iran would be ready for a meeting with the US and five other countries who brokered the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

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