WASHINGTON — Iran wants the agenda for a new round of nuclear talks to refer explicitly to sanctions relief and what it views as its right to enrich uranium, Al-Monitor has learned.

An Iranian source who declined to be identified told Al-Monitor that a lack of agreement on these issues was slowing a resumption of talks, which had been expected this month.

The re-election of US President Barack Obama produced modest optimism that Iran and the United States and its partners in the P5+1 — the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany — would be in a position to show more flexibility to defuse a looming crisis over Iran’s advancing nuclear program. However, the same issues that stymied negotiators during three fruitless rounds last year appear to be preventing progress now and making it hard for the negotiators even to get back to the table. A Western diplomat told Al-Monitor's Laura Rozen Friday (Jan. 10) that efforts are under way to arrange a meeting at the end of the month, but that no date or venue had yet been agreed.

The Iranian source told Al-Monitor that Iran wants its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to be stated in the agenda, “which means there will not be any restriction for enrichment …The second request is to decrease the sanctions from [the] UN not America and Europe.” If these two items are included, the source continued, Iran “will be in the position to discuss about a general agreement which includes any matters … interesting for IAEA [the International Atomic Energy Agency] and [the] 5+1 countries.”