Putin urging Iran to stick to nuclear deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin says that he has been urging Iran’s leadership to stick to the nuclear deal, despite the US withdrawal from it.

Putin, who is meeting Austria’s president in Russia’s Sochi, tells reporters that the 2015 nuclear accords “are coming apart” but that he has been advising Iranian leaders to adhere to them no matter what the United States does.

The Russian leader says that after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran deal with world powers, “Europe can’t do anything to save it” and that if Iran begins to backtrack on its commitments, “everyone will end up blaming it all on Iran.”

Putin says Russia was glad to help mediate the deal and would be willing to help in the future but he adds that Russia “is not a rescue squad” and cannot fix “everything that doesn’t depend on us entirely.”

— AP