MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed in a phone conversation on Monday the situation around the Iran nuclear deal and the preparations for the fifth Caspian summit, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"The foreign ministers discussed the issues of bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on a range of vital issues of the international and regional agenda with the focus on the situation around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iran nuclear program and also the groundwork for the fifth Caspian summit," the ministry said.

On May 8, US President Donald Trump announced Washington’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal as, in his words, the agreement left Iran a possibility to create a nuclear bomb bypassing all the restrictions. He promised to reinstate the previous anti-Iranian sanctions and even impose tighter ones. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reiterated his country’s commitment to the deal, saying Teheran will continue to implement its liabilities. However, he added that the European Union should guarantee that Tehran’s benefits, agreed under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), remain in place. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow was disappointed by this Washington’s step calling this decision a cover-up for settling political accounts with Iran.

Leaders of the Caspian states (Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan) will hold a meeting in Kazakhstan’s Aktau in early August. The foreign ministers from the regional states are expected to hold talks a day before the summit.

The legal status of the Caspian Sea remains the key issue discussed at the regional countries’ summits. The five countries’ leaders held their first meeting in Turkmenistan’s capital of Ashgabat in 2002. The second Caspian summit was held in the Iranian capital of Tehran in 2007, while Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku hosted the third summit in 2010, and Russia’s Astrakhan hosted the fourth summit in 2014.