over its rapidly advancing nuclear programme, while calling for the resumption of the multilateral talks on the issue.

The three nations “emphasised the necessity of terminating all unlawful unilateral sanctions”, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu read from a joint statement issued on Friday. He was flanked by his counterparts from Russia, Ryabkov Sergey Alexeevich, and Iran, Kazem Gharibabadi. “The relevant parties should work to eliminate the root causes of the current situation and abandon sanctions, pressure and threats of the use of force,” Ma said.

Iran’s Gharibabadi praised the meeting as “very constructive and positive”, even as he accused “some countries” of creating “an unnecessary crisis” to thwart Tehran. Later on Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was due to meet with the three senior diplomats. The talks are the latest attempt to resolve the Iran impasse, as Trump tries to reach out to its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an attempt to jumpstart talks.

Any progress on the Iran talks with the Trump administration requires the support of Russia and China, which are both permanent members of the United Nations Security Council alongside the US, France and Britain. The approval of the Security Council paved the way for the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Trump abandoned in 2018 during his first term as president, setting in motion years of attacks and tensions in the wider Middle East.

Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium only up to 3.67 percent purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 300 kilogrammes (661 pounds). The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s programme put its stockpile at 8,294.4kg (18,286 pounds) as it enriches a fraction of it to 60 percent purity. Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful. (Aljazeera)