TEHRAN, Sept 5: Iranian President Hassan Rowhani has tasked the foreign ministry, headed by Mohammad Javad Zarif, with handling the country’s sensitive nuclear negotiations with world powers, the president’s website said on Thursday.

The announcement comes three weeks before Iran and the UN atomic watchdog are to resume talks in Vienna over Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.

Until now, Tehran’s point man has been Saeed Jalili, head of the Supreme National Security Council. That follows a tradition dating back to 2003, when Rowhani himself headed the council.

In recent weeks, the press had speculated that Zarif, who worked with Rowhani when he held the job until 2005, would be taking over the talks.

The president last month named ex-foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi to head the country’s Atomic Energy Organisation and career diplomat Reza Najafi as envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Western countries and Israel suspect Iran’s nuclear programme is cover for a drive for a weapons capability, an ambition Tehran strongly denies.

The IAEA has been probing the programme for a decade, and a number of international sanctions have been slapped on Tehran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium. That process can lead to producing the fissile core of an atomic weapon.

Talks between Tehran and major world powers have so far failed to yield an agreement.

The last round of discussions were held in mid-May, before the election of Rowhani, who was Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator under reformist president Mohammad Khatami.

Delegates from the IAEA and Iranian officials have held 10 rounds of failed meetings since the November 2011 publication of a major IAEA report on Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Director-general Yukiya Amano expressed his frustration in June at talks that were “going around in circles”.

The IAEA wants Iran to grant access to sites, documents and scientists involved in Tehran’s alleged efforts to develop atomic weapons, which the agency suspects mostly took place before 2003 but are possibly still ongoing.—AFP