Iran Offers ‘Readiness’ for Talks as It Faces Financial Cutoff

Iran seeks direct negotiations about its nuclear program at the “earliest possibility,” the country’s top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, wrote in a Feb. 14 letter to Europe’s foreign policy head Catherine Ashton.

As the U.S. and European Union are evaluating the Iranian message, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators said they are “extremely concerned” that Iran will “seek to buy time” or weaken economic sanctions without giving up uranium enrichment activities that may be used to make the fuel for nuclear weapons.