The U.S. president announced today that he intends to push for new diplomatic ways to resolve the international dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.
In his first press conference since his re-election last week, President Barack Obama said: “I will try to make a push in the coming months to see if we can open up a dialogue between Iran and not just us, but the international community, to see if we can get this thing resolved."
Iran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful and that, as an NPT signatory, it has the right to exploit nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
Obama said: “There should be a way in which they can enjoy peaceful nuclear power while still meeting their international obligations and providing clear assurances to the international community that they're not pursuing a nuclear weapon," Obama said. "I can't promise that Iran will walk through the door that they need to walk through. But that would be very much the preferable option."
The United States together with the European Union have imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors, significantly shrinking Iran’s oil export revenues.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has announced that it will hold talks with Iran in December in Tehran, and there have some unconfirmed reports of a possible one-on-one meeting between Iran and the United States to resolve the nuclear disputes.
