WASHINGTON, Oct 5, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - The United States hopes to restart

nuclear talks with Iran soon, a senior US official said Monday, while noting
"alarming" progress by Tehran on developing nuclear capacity.

  "We're hopeful we can be back in Vienna (for talks)... in a fairly short
period of time," the senior administration official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity, told reporters.

  Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said Monday that the new round of
discussions could begin by early November.

  Iran's nuclear activity will be at the center of talks between US and
Israeli national security teams in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday.

  Israeli National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata and his White House
counterpart, Jake Sullivan, will join a meeting of the US-Israel Strategic
Consultative Group, which groups representatives from both countries'
diplomatic, military and intelligence agencies.

  President Joe Biden -- who reversed his predecessor Donald Trump's decision
to pull the United States from international negotiations on curbing Iran's
nuclear ambitions -- is keen to resolve the standoff diplomatically.

  "The path in Vienna for negotiations does remain open," the US official
said. "The Iranians are sending indications to a number of parties that they
are preparing to come back to Vienna and of course we will have to see
whether they reengage in that process constructively or not."

  Despite Israeli skepticism, the Biden administration believes "very
strongly that the diplomatic path remains the best," the official said.

  However, the official said the White House and Israel's new government
agree that Iran has made rapid advances since Trump quit the international
effort to monitor Tehran's nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief.

   Tehran insists that it does not seek nuclear weapons, only an energy
industry.

  "We have a common assessment of the extent to which Iran's nuclear program
has dramatically broken out of the box since the previous administration left
the Iran nuclear deal," the official said.

  "The breakout time, meaning stockpiles of enriched uranium and other ways
to look at this, it's gone from about 12 months down to a period of a few
months. So obviously that's quite alarming."

  The official said the United States believes diplomacy will be "the best
way to put a ceiling on the program and roll back the gains that Iran has
made in recent years."

  However, there is no movement to lifting sanctions and if diplomacy doesn't
work "there are other avenues."

  "We think the onus right now is on the Iranian side," the official said.