MP: US Should Match Words on Iran by Action

“We are ready to have relations with the US, but that country needs to prove its words in a practical way,” Member of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Abbas Ali Manosuri told Tasnim News Agency in Iran's central city of Isfahan.

“Except for the Zionist regime, which is an illegitimate and occupier regime, we are ready to establish relations with any government that can, in practice, respect the interests of the Iranian nation and remain committed to them,” he said.

Mansouri further added that the "totalitarian countries" must respect the rights of the Iranian nation and are expected to explicitly respect and recognize the national interests of Iran, as Iran, too, reciprocally respects the national interests of the other countries.

This comes following a telephone conversation between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his US counterpart Barack Obama, and a meeting between Iran's foreign minister and the US secretary of state in New York, which can herald a thaw in bilateral relations that have been in deep freeze for more than three decades.

This is the highest-level contact between the two countries in more than three decades and a sign that they are serious about reaching a pact on Tehran's nuclear program.

President Obama told the UN general Assembly on Tuesday that the US wanted to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully, and that he respected the right of the Iranian to peaceful nuclear energy.

"We are not seeking regime change, and we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy," he told the assembly.

"Instead, we insist that the Iranian government meet its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and UN Security Council resolutions."

And US Secretary of State John Kerry told CBS News Thursday that Washington could begin lifting sanctions within months if Iran took rapid measures to cooperate with international monitoring of its nuclear activities.