Real progress has been made in the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear deal, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on the results of Russian diplomacy in 2021.
"On the Iranian nuclear program <...> there is real progress, there is a real desire there, primarily between Iran and the United States, to understand specific concerns and understand how these concerns can be addressed in the overall package," the minister said.
Lavrov stressed that "it can only be a package solution," like the Iran deal itself. "The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was a package solution," he noted.
According to the minister, experienced negotiators in Vienna "have already penetrated the very details of this negotiating matter" and are "making good progress now." "I am knocking on wood, but we expect that an agreement will be reached," he concluded.
Lavrov said Iran must think realistically to reach an agreement on a nuclear deal. "We expect that an agreement will be reached. For this, it is important that Iranian partners also be as realistic as possible and cooperate with the IAEA," the minister said. - "Secondly, it is important that the Western participants of the negotiation process do not try to create psychological tension by periodically throwing initiatives into the media public space criticizing Iran and making demands to it".
According to the head of the Russian MFA, "quiet diplomacy" is needed here. "It's working, I repeat," he stressed. Lavrov also noted with satisfaction that the parties managed to overcome the situation when the West started putting forward conditions for the resumption of Iran's nuclear program, which involved imposing restrictions on Iran's missile program that were not fixed in the JCPOA, and conditions concerning the state's "behavior" in the region. The minister stressed that Russia was categorically against this unfair approach, "because we were talking about the JCPOA, which was approved by the UN Security Council in the form in which it was signed". "The point was that after the Trump administration withdrew from this agreement, to restore it in full, as it had been agreed, without exceptions and without any additions," Lavrov reminded, specifying that this was the approach that was eventually agreed upon.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
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Based on materials from TASS