LONDON: Oil prices gained slightly on Thursday despite easing geopolitical worries and an improving supply picture, as traders sought bargains after sharp losses earlier this month. Brent oil gained 19 cents to $108.51 a barrel by 0843 GMT, after slipping to $108 earlier in the session. The benchmark is down 4.8 percent so far in September, on track for its biggest monthly fall since April. US crude futures added 7 cents at $102.73 a barrel. "Everything else points to lower prices, but sometimes in situations like this the opposite happens, and people close short positions and look for bargains after a big downward move," said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt. Iran's new government said on Wednesday it wants to jump-start talks with world powers to resolve a decade-long dispute over its nuclear program and hoped for a deal in three to six months. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is set to hold talks on the nuclear issue on Thursday with US Secretary of State John Kerry as well as diplomats from Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, in a rare encounter between top American and Iranian officials. The West's standoff with Iran over the OPEC member's nuclear program has helped support oil prices for nearly a decade. Years of sanctions have cut Iranian oil exports by more than 1 million barrels per day. The improving situation in Syria also pressured oil prices. Envoys from the United States, Russia, France, China and Britain have agreed on the core of a UN Security Council resolution to get rid of Syria's chemical weapons, three Western diplomats said. Russia denied such an accord had been reached. Syria is not a major oil producer but prices had climbed in the past on worries that any escalation of Middle East violence could disrupt oil flows from the region, which pumps a third of the world's crude.

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