WASHINGTON - US President-elect Joe Biden will insist Iran agrees to new demands if it wants the US to return to a nuclear deal and lift sanctions, The New York Times said Wednesday. The Times said the Biden administration would seek to extend the duration of "restrictions on Iran's production of fissile material that could be used to make a (nuclear) bomb" in a new round of negotiations. Iran would also have to address its "malign" regional activities through proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen in the talks that would have to include its Arab neighbors like Saudi Arabia, the report said. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 and has re-imposed crippling sanctions on Iran as part of a "maximum pressure" campaign against the US's arch enemy. Biden, who defeated Trump at the ballot box last month, said during campaigning that he intends to offer Iran a "credible path back to diplomacy". In the Times interview published on Wednesday, the incoming US president stood by those views, saying: "It's going to be hard, but yeah." "Look, there's a lot of talk about precision missiles and all range of other things that are destabilizing the region," Biden was quoted as saying. But, he added, "the best way to achieve getting some stability in the region" was to deal "with the nuclear program".