MOSCOW, August 16. /TASS/. Moscow hopes that Tehran will not quit the nuclear program agreement and that Washington will not violate its obligations under that document, too, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"As for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s statement to the effect Iran might quit the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, I do hope that this will not happen," Lavrov said. "I also hope that the United States will not violate its commitments to the Joint Plan, either."
Lavrov recalled that the United States had confirmed within the established deadlines Tehran’s compliance with its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
"But at the same time Washington took more unilateral sanctions against Iran saying that they had no bearing on the nuclear program but concerned Iran’s behavior in other fields the US is critical of, such as human rights, Tehran’s policies in the region and so on," Lavrov said.
"The missile program is Iran’s internal affair. Iran is not prohibited from having it," Lavrov said. "The UN Security Council’s resolution contains no legal bans on that score."
The top diplomat added US sanctions against Iran can undermine balance on the nuclear deal. "Unilateral sanctions are essentially illegitimate. When these sanctions are used to upset the balance on a certain problem in favor of some party, and such a balance was achieved on the Iranian nuclear program, these are irresponsible moves, which may upset and undermine that balance," Lavrov said. "One should not come up with such provocations, since the issue at hand is the interests of a vast region where we would like to secure a non-nuclear status rather than some individual country’s national interests."