Iran is ready to engage in high-level talks with the United States

Iran is ready to engage in high-level talks with the United States, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in comments published Thursday by official news agency IRNA.
  
"A meeting is not an end in itself, nor is it ruled out... President (Hasan) Rouhani has no problem in principle" with meeting US President Barack Obama, he said. "It would have been a good beginning," Zarif added of speculation that such a meeting was allegedly to take place this week in New York, but in the end never did.
  
"President Rouhani has always said he is prepared to do whatever is in the national interest," the minister added.

Zarif said of the mooted Rouhani-Obama encounter that "the American government expressed its wish, on the eve of the UN General Assembly, for such a meeting" but "there was not enough time to arrange it". "The meeting was not that important... we are not there for show but to defend the national interests of our nation," he added.
  
Obama "made more moderate comments than in the past", Zarif said. "If that is the basis of a new political will to solve misunderstandings and ease Iranian concerns, this would be more important than a meeting.
  
"We will see during the ministerial meeting with the 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) what the US secretary of state's approach will be. "We will see if he has the will to search for a solution to the Iranian nuclear question that is in the interests of the world, peace and security and also respect for the rights of the Iranian nation."

Zarif wrote on his Twitter account from New York on Wednesday: "We have a historic opportunity to resolve the nuclear issue" if world powers adjust to the "new Iranian approach".