Iranian President Sheikh Hasan Rouhani expressed hope to reach a deal over the Iranian nuclear issue in three to six months through diplomatic negotiations with commitment to transparency

Iranian President Sheikh Hasan Rouhani expressed hope to reach a deal over the Iranian nuclear issue in three to six months through diplomatic negotiations with commitment to transparency in an interview with The Washington Post published Wednesday.

Rouhani said he saw a resolution of the issue as a "beginning point" in easing US-Iran relations. The Iranian president stressed that he is “fully empowered to finalize the nuclear talks” by Iran’s supreme leader, Sayyed Ali Khamenei.

Asked about a timeframe for resolving the nuclear issue, President Rouhani told the Washington Post: "The only way forward is for a timeline to be inserted into the negotiations that is short. Sheikh Rouhani said his “choice” would be a three-month timetable, and that six months would still be “good,” but this should be a matter of “months, not years.”

On Thursday, Iran will hold talks with the P5+1 group of world powers on Tehran's uranium enrichment program.

Rouhani said that if he and President Barack Obama got together they would both be "looking at the future".

President Hassan Rouhani assured that Iran poses no threat to the region “The notes and letters and exchanges between us are in that direction, and they will continue,” he said.

“We need a beginning point. I think that is the nuclear issue. After resolution of the nuclear issue there are no impossibilities in term of advancing other things forward. Everything is possible after the settlement,” he added.

President Obama has welcomed the new Iranian president's more “moderate course”.

Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani also called Thursday for the Zionist entity to put its suspected nuclear arms under international control ahead of a landmark meeting between foreign ministers from Iran and western nations.

The Iranian president spoke at a UN nuclear disarmament conference ahead of a meeting between Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Mohammad Zarif with US Secretary of State John Kerry and ministers from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.

On Tuesday, Rouhani told the UN General Assembly that he was prepared to engage in "time-bound and results-oriented" talks on the nuclear issue.