Iran says that it is ready for nuclear talks.

I leave that line standing on its own because this is a big thing, not tied to party and not really tied to any political viewpoint in particular- other than the objective by every country in the world to make sure that its people and land are safe. Too much? Perhaps. But with North Korea walking out of recent nuclear talks and Iran being consistently resistant to outside investigators and U.N. representatives, this represents an important international move forward. And that is good news for the U.S., for the UN, and for the Middle East in general.

Saeed Jalili, Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator, said: "The Islamic republic's package of proposals is updated and ready and will be presented [to world powers]. We hope a new round of talks will be held for reaching a world full of progress and justice.”

Iran continues to refuse to stop their uranium enrichment activities, the key to the fears of the West around their nuclear programs. It’s encouraging that Iran is interested in engaging in talks and the idea that they want something “constructive” to come out of these talks is fantastic. But the fact remains that the big deal people in the West feel is that there is uranium enrichment going on in Iran.
The West wants no uranium enrichment going on in Iran. This is the crux of any negotiation- and while Iran is saying it is ready for new talks, what could possibly come out of the talks that would be beneficial for either side?

The first thing is that Iran agreeing to the talks means that they took president Barack Obama’s call for them to accept six-party talks by a September deadline. That shows that they are interested in being at the table- a good first step.

Jalili will be presenting a package at the UN Security Council members (Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States) and Germany.  

Al Jazeera’s Alireza Ronaghi, a correspondent in Tehran, says, "Iran wants to take its nuclear programme out of focus and the best way to do this would be to use Iran's full capacity to co-operate to solve regional problems. Iran wants to say that we have various capacities to work with the world and with the global community, it's not just the nuclear issue."

The redirect. Good politics, Iran. Not to say that there are not other things going on- and perhaps the recent clearing of their nuclear programs by the UN watchdog should be enough to quell the fears of the Western nations. If the UN committee of people who went in there to look at everything said it is peaceful, what can you base legitimate fears on? Iran will make its case at those six-party talks, perhaps alluding to ongoing Middle Eastern crises and/or the upcoming Copenhagen climate change- based summit. Either would be a strong diplomatic step forward for Iran, and coupled with their recent bill of peacefulness from the UN, could serve to take some of the intense scrutiny off their nuclear program.