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Moscow, Paris to continue cooperation for preserving nuclear deal with Iran — Lavrov

According to the top diplomat, the plan is vital as it has "no sound alternative"

MOSCOW, September 9. /TASS/. Russia and France are going to push ahead with cooperation in order to preserve the nuclear deal with Iran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a joint news conference following a 2+2 meeting of Russian and French foreign and defense ministers in Moscow on Monday.

"We agreed to go ahead with cooperation for the purpose of preserving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program," he said. "It is our common conviction this plan has no sound alternative."

He said Russia welcomed the "initiatives put forward by France and its president for the sake of achieving agreements that would make it possible to preserve the JCPOA to the full extent and safeguard all of Iran’s legitimate commercial interests this plan incorporates."

As for Iran, the United States’ sanction pressure has forced Iran to take another step to scale down its commitments under the nuclear deal, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday. "It cannot but be noted that the above mentioned steps were taken by the Iranian side after the United States delivered a series of ungrounded and illegal sanction blows on Tehran, including against Iran’s space industry," the ministry stated.