MOSCOW, February 19. /TASS/. The Kremlin views Washington’s intention to abandon sanctions against Iran in a positive light but highlights the particular importance of returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

"Abandoning calls for sanctions is a good thing in itself," he said, explaining that the sanctions were not conducive to resolving the Iranian nuclear issue and led nowhere.

"However, it is precisely the restoration of the JCPOA that is important," the Kremlin spokesman stressed.

"We are a country that has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for Iran, and we have always expressed our regret over the fact that the United States had pulled out of the JCPOA," Peskov specified.

"We continue to be supporters of this document and call on everyone to do their utmost for its effective implementation," the press secretary noted.

Washington’s stance

Charge d’Affaires of the United States of America to the United Nations, Richard Mills, earlier sent a letter to the UN Security Council, which said that Washington was withdrawing the demand to reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran. Mills said in his letter that the measures provided for by Resolution 2231 on the Iran nuclear deal terminating the sanctions imposed earlier remained in force, while the previous resolutions that had imposed the sanctions, which were lifted in 2015, remained terminated.

In 2018, then US President Donald Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. After that, the United States unleashed a campaign to exert maximum pressure on Tehran, which was actually aimed at strangling Iran’s economy.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (Russia, the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France) and Germany in 2015. The deal was aimed at overcoming the crisis regarding Tehran’s nuclear program.