Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani called on the P5+1 group to speed up the process of nuclear talks by showing flexibility, saying “it’s the other side’s turn to be flexible.”

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani called on the P5+1 group to speed up the process of nuclear talks by showing flexibility, saying “it’s the other side’s turn to be flexible.”

“Since the previous negotiations until today, we have really shown the required flexibility and now it is the other side’s turn to show flexibility, so that the issue can be resolved,” Rouhani said at a Friday press conference on the sidelines of the 69th meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Rouhani’s remarks came as reports emerged that the United States is considering softening demands that Iran gut its uranium enrichment program, instead floating a new proposal that would allow Tehran to keep almost half of the program intact, diplomats said.

The tentative new U.S. offer attempts to meet the Iranians close to half way on numbers, diplomats told The Associated Press.  They said it envisages letting Iran keep up to 4,500 centrifuges but would reduce the stock of uranium gas fed into the machines to the point where it would take more than a year of enriching to create enough material for a nuclear warhead.

That, they said, would give the international community enough lead time to react to any such attempt.

“The time remaining to reach an agreement is short and the progress we have witnessed over the past days has been very very slow; it needs to be faster, so that we can reach the agreement based on the realities,” the Iranian chief executive pointed out.

Rouhani noted that any nuclear deal should recognize Tehran’s right to enrichment on Iranian soil and include total removal of sanctions against the country.

 “In the nuclear talks, I had really never seen as serious a tone as [the one] I witnessed in recent days, and I have no doubt [about it] as I have followed up past negotiations as well,” the Iranian president pointed out.

Rouhani said that all countries are awaiting the swift settlement of the nuclear issue, so that they can promote their economic relations with Iran.
 
“Iran is a very important country with enormous potential in the region and this agreement will be definitely to the benefit of all countries, not only economically, but also politically and also with regards to peace, stability and security,” he noted