Iran FM: Major powers must table new nuclear proposals

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called on Sunday for new proposals from the major powers in talks on its nuclear programme that are due to resume on October 15. Zarif said that the previous offer, made by the so-called P5+1 group at two meetings in Kazakhstan in February and April before President Hassan Rouhani's June election was no longer valid. "The previous offer by the P5+1 is history and they should come to the negotiating table with a new approach," the ISNA news agency quoted Zarif as saying. Those proposals required Iran to suspend enrichment of uranium to the 20 percent level its says it needs for a medical research reactor and halt enrichment at its underground plant at Fordo near the central city of Qom. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represents the six powers in the talks, said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly late last month that she was still waiting for Iran's response to those previous proposals.