April 13th – Russian Sputnik News Agency reported that on the 13th local time, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif held talks in Tehran and jointly attended the joint press conference.
Lavrov said that Russia expressed surprise at EU sanctions against Iranian officials. He pointed out that the EU’s sanctions on Iran during the Vienna talks were unacceptable, and Moscow condemned any attempt to undermine the negotiations on the Iran nuclear agreement. Zarif also expressed his hope that the EU could act on common sense, stressing that time was running out to save the Iran nuclear agreement.
The Russian Foreign Minister also pointed out that Washington should lift all unilateral sanctions against Iran.
The European Union announced on April 12 that it would extend the sanctions against Iran until April 2022, including a travel ban, an asset freeze and a ban on the export of specific technical equipment to Iran.
On the same day, the European Union also decided to impose additional sanctions on eight individuals and three entities, including Hussein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran. At present, a total of 89 individuals and 4 entities in Iran are on the EU sanctions “blacklist”.
