The Russian Ambassador to Tehran has said that Russia hopes to achieve progress in talks with Iran on using national currencies in settlements in 2018.

“Central banks’ working groups have met several times. As far as we can understand, intense contacts and negotiations are underway,” Levan Dzhagaryan said in an interview with TASS on Sunday.

In March 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin, after talks with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, said the two countries would be working on favorable conditions for using national currencies in settlements.

Commenting on protests in Iran in late December and early January, Dzhagaryan said the protests were caused by inner reasons, though were fueled by the Western media, including BBC and Voice of America.

“The wave of protests in Iran in late 2017 - early 2018 was caused first of all by the fact the locals were not happy about the social and economic situation in the country (inflation, growing prices on essentials, high level of unemployment, corrupted authorities, expensive foreign policies and so forth),” the diplomat said. “The Iranian officials admitted existing problems.”

‘Russia satisfied with level of co-op with Iran’

Dzhagaryan also said that Moscow is satisfied with the level of Russia-Iran cooperation within the framework of the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

He said that a delegation from Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom, which is visiting Iran, has discussed “certain practical aspects of the project to reconfigure the Fordow reactor”.

“We hope to see soon the results of these consultations,” he added. 

The ambassador also noted that both Tehran and Moscow are concerned about the situation around the JCPOA.

“There are reasons to understand our European counterparts also worry about this, as they had applied much effort to reach the deal,” he remarked.

“I would like to stress once again - Iran observes fully its obligations under the JCPOA. This deal is the result of long complicated international talks and it should remain as it was made in summer 2015. There can be no question of any changes.”

Iran and six world powers - the U.S., UK, France, Russia, China and Germany - struck the nuclear deal on July 14, 2015. The deal went into effect in January 2016. Since the deal went into force, the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency has issued nine reports each time confirming that Iran has been living up to its nuclear obligations.

In a statement on January 12, U.S. President Donald Trump gave Europeans only 120 days to agree to an overhaul of the nuclear agreement and said if the text of the deal is not revised he would unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the agreement.