The United Kingdom and Germany cautioned Russia on Saturday that its demands for economic guarantees with Iran risked jeopardising an almost-completed nuclear deal.
Negotiators have reached the last phases of talks to re-establish the so-called JCPOA deal, which lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme, which the West has long viewed as a cover for producing nuclear weapons.
However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov unexpectedly sought last Saturday broad assurances that Russian trade with Iran would not be harmed by sanctions placed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
Nobody should try to use JCPOA negotiations to get assurances that are not part of the JCPOA,” France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, the so-called E3 European participants to the 2015 agreement, said in a joint statement.
“This raises the prospect of the transaction collapsing,” they warned.
They stated that the agreement on the table should be completed as soon as possible.
Washington has previously stated that it will not adhere to Russia’s requests.
The 11-month-old international talks aim to bring Iran back into compliance with the deal’s constraints on its rapidly expanding nuclear activities, as well as to re-enter the United States into the agreement it exited in 2018 under former President Donald Trump.
Oil markets are eagerly monitoring the status of discussions to determine if limits on Iranian crude shipments can be relaxed, which might help offset supply disruptions caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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