MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/. Russia is interested in successful completion of talks on the Iranian nuclear program and its role in these talks stems from Russia’s national interests, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview with three Russian news agencies on Friday.
"Frankly speaking, we find it sort of alarming that in the recent time some Western media have been speculating about Russia’s losing interest in a successful completion of talks and alleged easing up its activity due to reasons that have nothing to do with this process," the Russian diplomat noted. "I’d like to stress that it is not true. We are continuing our participation in these talks not to please anyone, not under pressure, not because of any herd instinct coming upon us due to unknown reasons, but because this is the way we see our role stemming from our national interests."
"I hope no one is interested in having a new potentially dangerous conflict zone in the Middle East," he noted. "Everyone must be interested in the soonest normalization of the lasting abnormal situation which tells on all aspects of Iran’s nuclear activities."
"We want sanctions against Iran to be lifted," he said. "Among other things, it will help normalize very important areas of Russian-Iranian cooperation. And both Moscow and Teheran are interested in that."
"The list of reasons why we are oriented towards the result (in Iran’s dialogue with the P5+1 group of international mediators — TASS) can be continued. And it has issues on which Russia has very tough stance," he noted.
He said he was confident the "potential multi-party deal with Iran" would not create precedents in the international system that might adversely affect the non-proliferation regime. "It means that this ‘deal’ must not be later used as a reference norm when in situations like this, and let us hope there will not be many, a necessity will emerge to organize intrusive inspections, large-scale monitoring and so on," Ryabkov added.