MOSCOW: Moscow and Tehran called for the rescue of the Iran nuclear deal Tuesday, as their top diplomats held their first talks since Joe Biden’s election raised hopes of Washington returning to the agreement.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said ahead of the talks in Moscow that “one of the most pressing topics is the task of rescuing the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA)”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif thanked Moscow for its efforts to repair the JCPOA after the US exit in 2018 and for Russia’s “constructive and principled” position on the deal.

Zarif urged unity between Moscow and Tehran “in order to save the JCPOA from the risks and fears that arose after the United States left this plan.”

The talks in Moscow come days after Zarif urged the United States to make the “fundamental choice” to lift sanctions and reverse the “failed policies” of the previous administration, which took a hard line on Tehran.

He cautioned that any efforts from Washington to extract additional concessions would ultimately end in failure.

“Iran wants the nuclear deal it made,” Zarif wrote in an op-ed in the Foreign Affairs magazine.

The agreement was largely left in tatters after former US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew and ordered officials to reimpose tough penalties against Tehran as part of his administration’s “maximum pressure” policy. The deal was agreed in 2015 between Iran, the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany.