Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected in Tehran on Wednesday (January 22nd) where he is to meet his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the official Irna news agency reported.
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"
Lavrov is to meet tomorrow (Thursday) our foreign minister
," Irna said without further details.
The trip comes as Iran and Russia, two countries under international sanctions, said in May they wanted to strengthen their relations in the energy and trade sectors, following a visit by the vice-president Russian Prime Minister in Tehran.
It also comes in the context of the Iranian nuclear talks launched in Vienna in April 2021 between Iran and the major powers (Russia, United States, China, France, United Kingdom and Germany), which have stalled since March.
The Vienna talks, in which the United States participates indirectly, aim to bring Washington back into the 2015 international agreement providing for the limitation of Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for an easing of international sanctions.
Talks stalled
The pact has been moribund since the unilateral withdrawal in 2018 of the United States which reimposed punitive measures on Tehran.
In response, Iran gradually freed itself from its commitments, while denying that it wanted to acquire the atomic bomb.
The objective of the negotiations in Vienna is also to bring Tehran back to full compliance with its international commitments concerning its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against Iran.
But those talks have stalled since March.
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Long antagonists, Russia and Iran have seen their relations improve in recent years with a clear political and military rapprochement thanks to common geopolitical interests and the two countries cooperate on various issues.
Moscow plays a central role in the application of the 2015 pact, in particular by receiving the tons of excess enriched uranium from Tehran.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi traveled to Moscow in January where he met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and presented a plan to strengthen relations between the two countries over the next 20 years.