US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday dismissed as "irrelevant" Russian demands for guarantees that new sanctions linked to Ukraine will not affect Moscow's rights under a reworked Iran nuclear deal.
The sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine "have nothing to do with the Iran nuclear deal," Blinken said on CBS’ "Face the Nation", as quoted by AFP.
They "just are not in any way linked together, so I think that's irrelevant," he added.
Blinken said it was not only in America's interest but Russia's as well that Iran not be able "to have a nuclear weapon or the capacity to produce a weapon on very, very short order."
His comments come a day after Russia said that Western sanctions imposed over the conflict in Ukraine had become a stumbling block for the Iran nuclear deal.
Iran had announced it had agreed a roadmap with the UN nuclear watchdog to resolve all outstanding questions about the country’s nuclear program by late June, a move seen as a latest push to revive Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with global powers.
However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov subsequently said the sanctions on Russia had created a “problem” from Moscow’s perspective.
A US State Department spokesperson later said the US sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine are not related to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and should not have any impact on a potential revival of that agreement.
Iran has gradually scaled back its compliance with the 2015 deal, in response to former US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement in May of 2018, but has held several rounds of indirect talks with the US on a return to the agreement.
There have been indications that a deal between Iran and world powers could be reached within days.
On Friday, Russia's chief negotiator in talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal said he thought a deal was possible in the middle of next week.
"As far as I know, the Iranians are not ready for direct talks (with the United States)," Mikhail Ulyanov told reporters, according to Reuters.
"We will have a deal maybe in the middle of next week. We are talking about the last efforts before crossing the finish line," he added.
A day earlier, the US said that an agreement on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is close.
“We are close to a possible deal,” Jalina Porter, the US State Department’s principal deputy spokesperson, told reporters, according to Reuters.
She cautioned, however, that unsolved issues remained and that time was of the essence given the pace of Iran’s nuclear advances.