Qatar’s Foreign Minister Al Thani to meet Sergei Lavrov over hold on Iran nuclear deal

Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani will travel to Moscow on Sunday to meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. The meeting is organised to hold talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal stalled and Russia invaded Ukraine.  Al Thani could also potentially meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The visit comes as Iranian nuclear talks hit a roadblock after Russia demanded the US guarantee that its partnership with Tehran won't be affected by sanctions on Moscow. 

On Saturday, Al Thani in person spoke to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on this matter. He further aims to speak to Ukraine’s foreign minister before his visit to Moscow. The trip comes after his visits last week to France and Germany, where he discussed both the Iranian deal known as JCPOA and the war in Ukraine with his counterparts there. 

In a related update, in a move to pave the way for greater military and commercial relations between the US and Qatar, President Joe Biden designated Qatar as a key non-NATO ally of the US. According to a statement from the White House, President Biden said, “I hereby designate the State of Qatar as a major Non-NATO Ally of the United States for the purposes of the Act and the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.).” 

Iran nuclear talks

The European Union’s foreign policy chief on Friday said talks over Iran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers have to be kept on hold blaming “external factors” for the delay. This came as a plan that appeared imminent for the United States to rejoin an accord it unilaterally withdrew from in 2018, and for Iran to again limit its rapidly advancing nuclear programme.

Following the demand of Moscow to guarantee from Washington that new Western sanctions will not prevent Russia from trading with Iran, its invasion of Ukraine has hampered efforts to get an agreement across the finish line. 

Earlier on March 5, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov had said, “We have asked our American counterparts, who rule the roost here, to provide us with guarantees at least at the level of the secretary of state [that] the current process launched by the United States will by no means affect our right to free and full-fledged trading, economic, investment, military, and technical cooperation with Iran".

(Image: AP)