Iran seeks assurances

​Iran's foreign minister said on a visit to Moscow yesterday he was seeking "assurances" from the backers of the country's nuclear deal after the US pulled out.

Russia is trying to keep the landmark 2015 accord alive in the wake of US President Donald Trump's decision, pushing it into rare cooperation with Europe.

"The final aim of these negotiations is to seek assurances that the interests of the Iranian nation will be defended," Mohammad Javad Zarif said at the start of a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

After the talks, Zarif praised the "excellent cooperation" between Moscow and Tehran and said Lavrov had promised him to "defend and keep the agreement".

Lavrov, for his part, said Russia and Europe had a duty to "jointly defend their legal interests" in terms of the deal.

Zarif's diplomatic tour took him to Beijing at the weekend and will see him visit Brussels later in the week, as the international backers of the agreement scramble to save it.

After meeting his Chinese counterpart on Sunday, Zarif said he was hopeful of forging a "clear future design" for the accord.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already spoken with Germany's Angela Merkel and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the efforts, after voicing his "deep concern" over Trump's decision.

Trump's move to ditch the nuclear deal has infuriated Washington's allies in Europe as well as China and Russia.

"(European) cooperation with Russia, which until recently seemed impossible because of the Skripal (spy poisoning) case, with the expulsion of diplomats and the reduction of contact, is now receiving a fresh boost," consultant Andrei Baklitski of the PIR Center NGO said.