The United States and five partner countries have accepted Iran’s new offer to hold talks, even though Iran insists it will not negotiate over its disputed nuclear program. The talks are expected to start in early October. If successful, this would be the first formal, substantive talks between the United States and Iran since the Iranian Revolution thirty years ago. Iran last week handed over a package of proposals to the world powers in which Tehran said it was willing to discuss global nuclear disarmament as well as other international issues in wide-ranging talks. But the document did not mention Iran’s own nuclear program, which Iran maintains is only for civil energy uses. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted that Iran’s nuclear program will be discussed at the talks.

Robert Gibbs: “Certainly their willingness to talk about it is welcome. I’ll tell you this: we’re not talking for talking’s sake. This may not have been a topic that they wanted to be brought up, but I can assure you it’s a topic that we’ll bring up and the P5-plus-1 will bring up. The Iranians have responsibilities to the international community to walk away from their illicit nuclear weapons program. That’s what the focus from our side will be on in these talks. And that’s our goal.”