Moscow and its five partners in the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement oppose steps that put into question the Iranian nuclear deal's viability, the head of the ministry's Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, Mikhail Ulyanov, said.
"If the deal falls through, the issues that seem to be successfully addressed, will rise with all their acuteness, and the situation will again become unpredictable. The JCPOA failure would not be in the interests of the United States, Russia, Iran and its regional neighbors including Israel. No one will benefit from this," Sputnik cited him as saying.
Ulyanov said that Moscow and its European partners urge to "avoid any steps that could aggravate the situation." "Or, even more so, that call into question the viability of the existing agreements."
The tensions surrounding the 2015 agreement curbing Iran's nuclear program do not yet warrant an emergency session among six of its signatories, the Russian Foreign Ministry also stated.
"Objectively, this agreement was and is, maybe not ideal, but the most optimal of the possible ways out of a very difficult situation. It is a reasonable and very delicate compromise," Uliyanov said, adding that "such contacts are taking place."
"We do this on a regular basis in contacts with all members of the 'six' including Washington and Tehran. We try to promote the preservation of ta normal atmosphere around the implementation of the deal," he added.
US President Donald Trump criticized the JCPOA as "the worst deal ever negotiated."
A senior research fellow of the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Sazhin, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the joint comprehensive plan of action on the Iranian nuclear program is not a bilateral agreement between Iran and the US, therefore, break they are not able to break the deal. "It is an international agreement, worked out by the five permanent UN Security Council members, Germany and Iran, confirmed by the UN Security Council and the IAEA just a week after its conclusion. It is not a document that can be canceled by the United States at its request, especially since all other countries support this agreement," he explained.
At the same time the US has the ability to slow down the JCPOA. "Trump's anti-Iranian activities may delay the plan's process of implementation. But we should not forget about the large group of politicians in Iran who oppose the JCPOA. If such opponents of the nuclear deal, as the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia, say that the agreement is not enough to protect them against Iran's nuclear program, opponents in Tehran indicate excessive concessions to the West, which caused the blocking of nuclear technologies. Now there is a danger that the opponents of the plan in Iran and outside it can come together," Vladimir Sazhin warned.
The expert stressed that Iran's attitude towards the nuclear deal is the only thing that really threatens its fulfillment. "In this case, Iran will face considerable troubles, including a military solution to the Iranian nuclear issue from the part of the US and Israel," he said.
As for the cooling in relations between Tehran and Washington, there is nothing new here, the expert said. "The Islamic Republic of Iran will celebrate the 38th anniversary, and for all these years its relations with the US have never been particularly warm. It can't be serious, because the US is not going to start a war with Iran, and their trade and contacts are still insignificant. Therefore, we can expect that it will be limited to the agitation and propaganda struggle," the senior research fellow of the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences concluded.
