In a bid to strengthen United States’ position in international diplomacy, seasoned diplomats – Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland – were named in President-elect Joe Biden’s State Department on Saturday, AFP reports.

Sherman, who brokered the Iran accord under Barack Obama and negotiated a nuclear deal with North Korea under Bill Clinton, was named as deputy secretary of state. Whereas, Nuland, known for her robust support for Ukrainian protesters in the ouster of a Russian-aligned president, was nominated under secretary for political affairs — the State Department’s third-ranking post in charge of day-to-day US diplomacy.

These announcements bring a wave of optimism after Donald Trump exited the nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and imposed sweeping sanctions in what many observers saw as an unsuccessful attempt to topple the Shiite clerical regime. Sherman’s nomination marks another clear sign that Biden wants to return to the accord under which Iran drastically slashed its nuclear program in exchange for promises of sanctions relief.

Under outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a staunch defender of Trump, the United States has aggressively challenged Iran and China, robustly backed Israel and toyed with improving ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, while also imposing sanctions on Moscow.

The State Department team will work under secretary of state-designate Antony Blinken, whose confirmation hearing will take place on Tuesday on the eve of Biden’s inauguration. Blinken said that the State Department team, with women and ethnic minorities in prominent positions, “looks like America.”

“America at its best still has a greater capacity than any other country on earth to mobilize others to meet the challenges of our time,” Blinken said.

Biden said that the State Department nominees “have secured some of the most defining national security and diplomatic achievements in recent memory.”

“I am confident that they will use their diplomatic experience and skill to restore America’s global and moral leadership. America is back,” Biden said in a statement.

Joe Biden will be swearing in as the 46th US President on January 20. Keeping the pandemic and the US Capitol attack in mind Biden’s team and Washington’s Mayor Muriel Bowser have asked Americans to avoid the Capitol area and the city’s downtown and watch the inauguration ceremony from their computers and TVs.