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Rouhani says US-Iran ties could be restored but US must apologize

ROME- The nuclear deal between world powers and Iran could lead to better relations between Tehran and Washington and the eventual re-opening of embassies in both capitals, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was quoted as saying on Thursday.
However, he said he expected the United States to apologize to Iranians before diplomatic relations could be restored.
Iran and Washington severed ties in 1979 when 52 Americans were kidnapped and held in the US embassy in Tehran for over a year. Relations came under further pressure in the last decade over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Under the agreement reached in July, Iran is to curb its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of sanctions on its economy. Tehran denied Western suspicions it wanted to develop an atomic bomb.
"The way this agreement is applied can have an impact on the future," Rouhani said in an interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper ahead of his trip to Italy this weekend, his first to a European capital.
"If it is well applied it can lay the foundation for fewer tensions with the United States, creating the conditions to open a new era. But if the Americans don't respect their part of the nuclear accord, then surely our relationship will remain as it has been in the past," he said.