TEHRAN – Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his country would welcome any detente between the United States and Iran.

Putin expressed concern over the Tehran-Washington tensions, saying, “This worries us because this is happening near our borders.”

He made the comments to U.S. director Oliver Stone in an interview published on the official Kremlin website on Friday.

“This may destabilize the situation around Iran, affect some countries with which we have very close relations, causing additional refugee flows on a large scale plus substantially damage the world economy as well as the global energy sector,” Putin said, according to Tass.

“We would welcome any improvement when it comes to relations between the U.S. and Iran. A simple escalation of tension will not be advantageous for anyone. It seems to me that this is also the case with the U.S.,” he added.

The United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal on 8 May 2018 and imposed harsh economic sanctions on Tehran, including oil embargo. 

One year later, on 8 May 2019, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council announced suspension of some commitments in the framework of the nuclear deal and gave other participants in the deal two months to return to their obligations.

In follow-up to that deadline, on July 7 Iran announced that it has started enriching uranium to a higher purity than the 3.67% as the Europeans missed the deadline to devise a concrete mechanism to protect the country from the U.S. sanctions.

MH/PA