PREVIEW - Russian Foreign Minister To Meet With Iranian Counterpart In Moscow On Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th May, 2019) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold talks on Wednesday in Moscow with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to discuss bilateral relations and key issues on the international and regional agenda.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the two diplomats will discuss several areas of common interest to the two countries, including the Syrian settlement, the Caspian Sea region, South Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Among key issues to be discussed by Lavrov and Zarif is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Signed by China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States in 2015, the deal envisaged the gradual lifting of sanctions against Tehran in exchange for Iran promising to keep its nuclear program peaceful.

Exactly one year ago, on May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump announced his decision to pull out of the agreement, undermining two years of multilateral nuclear negotiations. Since then, Trump has imposed numerous sanctions against the middle Eastern country, seeking to drive Tehran's oil exports to near zero.

On Monday, Iranian media reported that Tehran was considering scaling back on some of the agreements it had signed under JCPOA in 2015, in response to the tightening US sanctions.

Seyed Ali Alavi, a teaching fellow in the Department of International politics at the school of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in his comment to Sputnik noted that since Trump's withdrawal from JCPOA the Iranian government was concerned that other participants to the deal may consider breaking the agreement as well.

"There have been close connections in terms of nuclear agreement between Russia and Iran .

.. It is not all up to Tehran and Moscow, in fact other signatories can play significant roles in maintaining the accord," Alavi said.

According to the scholar, Zarif aims to mitigate the negative economic impact of the US sanctions on Iran by working closely with Russia.

Zarif in his interview with Sputnik, published on Tuesday, reiterated that Tehran might review its commitments under the JCPOA if the European Union failed to help Iran counter the sanctions imposed by the United States.

Iran is also closely strategically allied to Russia through it military presence in Syria. Iran, Russia and Turkey are the guarantor states of the Syrian ceasefire. The three states meet on a regular basis to discuss the Syrian settlement process through the Astana format talks, the last installment of which was held on April 25-26.

In his recent interview with Sputnik, Zarif noted that despite the fact that the terrorists operating in Syria, whom the government had been fighting over the past several years, would not have the opportunity to start a new war in the region, some terrorist cells still remained throughout Syria.

Alavi also mentioned that Iran and Russia were important strategic allies in Syria.

"Russia and Iran have been collaborating in Syria since the beginning of the Syrian crisis. Both Tehran and Moscow share a goal that is supporting [President Bashar] Assad's Syria to regain its territory," Alavi said.

The expert added that Zarif's Wednesday meeting with Lavrov will touch on the recent political developments in Venezuela, where, on April 30, opposition leader, Juan Guaido, carried out a failed coup attempt.