TEHRAN —
Iran said Monday
it was awaiting "details" on
Russia's demands for US guarantees that
could potentially delay reaching an agreement in talks aiming to restore
Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
اضافة اعلان
Russia's Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov said
on Saturday that Moscow wants written guarantees from Washington that Western
sanctions imposed on it over the Ukraine conflict will not affect its economic
and military cooperation with Tehran, ahead of any conclusion of a revived Iran
nuclear deal.
US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken on
Sunday dismissed these demands as "irrelevant". Sanctions on Russia
over its invasion of Ukraine "have nothing to do with the Iran nuclear
deal", he said on CBS talk show "Face the Nation."
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman
Saeed Khatibzadeh said Monday "we have also seen and heard Mr Lavrov's remarks
in the media."
"We are waiting to hear the details of
that through diplomatic channels," he added, during his weekly news
conference.
"Iran's peaceful nuclear cooperation
should not be affected or restricted by any sanctions, including Iran's
peaceful nuclear cooperation with Russia,
China, and other countries," he
said.
Russia, which was slapped with wide-ranging
economic sanctions by the US and the
EU following its invasion of Ukraine, is
party to ongoing talks in
Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, along
with Britain, China, France, and Germany. The US is participating
indirectly.
The 2015 agreement gave Iran sanctions
relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, but the US unilaterally
withdrew from it in 2018 under then-president
Donald Trump who re-imposed heavy
economic sanctions on Tehran.
That prompted Iran to begin rolling back on
its own commitments.
The Vienna talks aim to return the US to the
nuclear deal and lift sanctions on Iran, while
Tehran would in turn return to
full compliance with its commitments.
As with the original agreement,
Moscow is
expected to play a key role in the implementation of any fresh deal with
Tehran, for example by receiving shipments of enriched uranium from Iran.
"Russia's approach so far has been a
constructive one in order to reach a collective agreement in Vienna,"
Khatibzadeh stressed.
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