TEHRAN, April 13. /TASS/. Tehran is grateful to Moscow for its willingness to condemn the incident at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday.
"Close bilateral regional and international cooperation as well as interaction in the fight against terrorism and on the way of strengthening the nuclear deal was very important and will continue. I believe it is necessary to thank the Russian side for condemning the sabotage at Natanz," he said in his opening remarks at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
On Monday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said commenting on the incident that if the information about malicious actions that caused the incident were confirmed, that intent would deserve strong condemnation.
Zarif stressed that Russia and Iran remained two neighbors and strategic partners, and there has been considerable progress in that cooperation over the past eight years, in particular, thanks to the stance of the two countries’ leaders Ali Khamenei and Vladimir Putin.
For his part, Lavrov noted that Moscow appreciated the opportunity to maintain regular face-to-face contacts with Iran despite the coronavirus pandemic. "I am glad to meet you again on the hospitable Iranian soil. I really appreciate our traditional close cooperation, not only with the use of modern technology, but in person, despite the pandemic and the restrictions caused by it. This face-to-face communication has continued regularly," Russia’s top diplomat said at the beginning of the meeting.
"Today we will continue our conversation about all those problems, which we discussed during your visit to Moscow in January," Lavrov noted. He added that ties between Moscow and Tehran "cover the whole range of the states’ activities, including top-level contacts and regular communication between the relevant government agencies, including parliamentary ties." "Undoubtedly, we are united by common approaches to contemporary international regional problems," Lavrov stressed.
The Natanz incident
On Sunday, Tehran said that the Natanz nuclear facility had been hit by a power failure. There are no casualties or environmental pollution. Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi described the incident as "nuclear terrorism." The New York Times wrote that "American and Israeli intelligence officials said there had been an Israeli role."