Iran's president calls on Joe Biden to return to nuclear deal

Iran's president called on President-elect Joe Biden to “compensate for past mistakes” and return the US to Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, a state-run news agency reported on Sunday.

Hassan Rouhani's comments mark the highest-level response from Iran to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris clinching the November 3 election.

“Now, an opportunity has come up for the next US administration to compensate for past mistakes and return to the path of complying with international agreements through respect of international norms,” the state-run IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Under President Donald Trump, tensions between the US and Iran have escalated, reaching fever-pitch earlier this year. One of Trump's signature foreign policy moves was unilaterally withdrawing the US from Iran's nuclear deal in 2018, which had seen Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

The US has since reimposed punishing sanctions on Iran that have crippled its economy, which was further battered by the coronavirus outbreak. In an effort to pressure Europe to find a way around the sanctions, Iran has slowly abandoned the limits of the nuclear deal.

“The people of Iran, though their heroic resistance against the imposed economic war, proved that the US maximum pressure policy was doomed to fail,” Rouhani said.

He added Iran “considers constructive engagement with the world as a strategy”.