US secretary of state John Kerry and Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif agreed at a meeting on Sunday to meet "as needed" while at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week as negotiations progress slowly towards a possible deal on Tehran's nuclear programme ahead of a November 24th deadline.
The rise of radical Muslim militants the Islamic State, a common enemy for the United States and Iran, has added a fresh impetus to relations between Washington and Tehran.
Sunday’s meeting, kick- starting a week of high-level contacts between the countries, was aimed at assessing how to break the logjam in the talks as Iran insists that its nuclear programme is for the peaceful purposes of an energy source and wants an end to nuclear-related economic sanctions, while the US is concerned Iran’s enrichment of uranium can also be used to build nuclear weapons.
Rare meeting
The two foreign ministers met on the third day of the latest round of negotiations between Iran and six of the world's biggest powers – the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – known as the "P5+1" discussions, which are led by the European Union.
Mr Kerry held out hope at his meeting with Mr Zarif that this week would be “an opportunity to make additional progress and stressed that it is our intention to do so”, said a senior state department official.
The rare meeting, lasting more than a hour, between the top diplomats of two countries which do not have official diplomatic relations came as negotiations have remained stuck for months over Iran’s refusal to reduce the size and output of centrifuges that can enrich uranium for both a power reactor and to build nuclear weapons.
A senior Obama administration official said: “We’re at the beginning of a very intense period here, and one never knows where it will go or whether you’ll get an issue and hit a wall or whether you’ll break through.”
The state department said Mr Kerry and Mr Zarif spoke on Sunday about "the threat posed" by Islamic State militants, which has taken over large swathes of Syria and Iraq, Iran's neighbour.
Washington has launched air strikes against the extremist group in Iraq, while Iran has supported Iraqi Shia militias fighting IS.
The US secretary of state suggested at a hearing before the Senate foreign relations committee last week that the task of defeating the Sunni militant group could fall to Shia-led Iranian and the Syrian governments if the American strategy aimed at destroying IS fails.
Mr Kerry said last week that Iran has a role to play in defeating the group, though the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rebuffed a US approach to join an American-led coalition against the extremists.
Senior Iranian officials appeared to be willing to offer assistance to the US in return for some leniency on Tehran’s nuclear programme. Reuters reported from the UN that Iranian officials expressed a willingness to work with the US on defeating the group in return for flexibility on Iran’s uranium enrichment.
The US rejected Iran’s suggestion, however, with the White House saying that the nuclear talks were “entirely separate” from President Barack Obama’s efforts to build a coalition to destroy IS.
“The United States will not be in the position of trading aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme to secure commitments to take on ISIL,” said Mr Obama’s spokesman Josh Earnest.
