Talks with Iran focused on nuclear issue: US

The United States is not in talks with Iran about the current insurgency facing Iraq and is instead focused on resolving issues over Iran's nuclear program, the State Department said on Friday, according to Reuters.

'We are not talking to the Iranians about Iraq,' spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters in a briefing.

The United States and other major powers are currently in negotiations with Iran about a decade-old dispute over Tehran's nuclear program. The nuclear talks will resume in Vienna on Monday.

Tehran is concerned about the rapid advance of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant rebels and their takeover of major cities and towns bordering Iran.

The pace of events means that Iran, which in the 1980s fought former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, may be willing to cooperate with Washington to bolster the Iraqi government.

But Harf emphasized that talks with Iran were strictly about the nuclear issue and not on Iraq.

Asked if the United States was open to talking to Iran about Iraq, Harf said, 'We are going back to Vienna next week for the nuclear negotiations which are focused on the nuclear issue, and I'm not going to speculate what this might look like going forward.'

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