The sides discussed issues of Russian-Iranian cooperation within BRICS, as well as a number of other current international problems, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Jalali and Ryabkov also discussed issues related to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), TASS reported.
BRICS currently consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Twenty-three countries officially applied for BRICS membership in August 2023. The August 22-24 BRICS summit invited Argentina, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia to join the association starting on January 1, 2024.
The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. Former US President Donald Trump illegally pulled out of the deal in 2018 while the current US President, Joe Biden, has signaled that he is ready to resurrect the agreement.
Russia, the UK, Germany, China, the US, and France have been in talks with Iran since April 2021 to reinstate the deal.
The talks to salvage the JCPOA kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April 2021, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.
The negotiations have been at a standstill since August due to Washington’s insistence on its hard-nosed position of not removing all the sanctions that were slapped on the Islamic Republic by the previous US administration. Iran maintains it is necessary for the other side to offer some guarantees that it will remain committed to any agreement that is reached.
MP/PR
