Cartoon by DARA Jam

Iran nuclear deal: President-elect Raisi issues warning over talks

BBC: Iran's president-elect has welcomed the negotiations with world powers aimed at reviving a 2015 nuclear deal, but said they must guarantee national interests.

At his first news conference since his victory in Friday's election, Ebrahim Raisi promised he would not allow the talks in Vienna to be dragged out.

He also insisted that Iran's ballistic missile programme was "not negotiable".

The nuclear deal has been close to collapse since the US abandoned it and reinstated sanctions three years ago.

Iran retaliated by gradually breaching its commitments under the accord that were designed to minimise the risk of it developing a nuclear weapon.

US President Joe Biden has said he will rejoin the deal and lift sanctions if Iran returns to full compliance, but Iran wants him to make the first move.

On Sunday, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi said representatives at the talks in Vienna were "closer than ever to an agreement", but that bridging the remaining gap was "not an easy job".

Israel's new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, meanwhile warned world powers "to wake up before returning to the nuclear agreement". He said Mr Raisi, a hard-line cleric who is head of Iran's judiciary and is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was part of a "regime of brutal hangmen".