Reuters Corrects Report after Wrongly Citing Tasnim about Russia’s Stance on JCPOA
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Reuters news agency on Monday corrected a report in which it wrongly said Tasnim had quoted an Iranian official as saying that Russia’s demands at the Vienna talks on revival of the JCPOA are “not constructive”.
Earlier in the day, Reuters claimed that Tasnim had cited an unnamed official as saying that Moscow’s stance in the negotiations were “unconstructive”.
It further claimed that the source had told Tasnim that “by postponing the revival of the agreement between Iran and the Western powers, and delaying Iran’s return to the oil market, Russia was seeking to raise crude prices and increase its own energy revenue”.
Tasnim contacted Reuters to underline that there have been no such remarks by an Iranian official carried by Tasnim and demand an explanation.
Later, Reuters corrected the earlier version and noted that Tasnim had picked up a comment in The Guardian newspaper.
On Monday, Russia’s ambassador to Tehran said a misunderstanding has arisen following media reports that Russian foreign minister has called for guarantees from the US that sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine war won’t affect its ability to work with Iran under the JCPOA.
Speaking to Tasnim in Tehran, Levan Jagaryan reacted to the recent remarks from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has reportedly said that Moscow wanted a written guarantee from the United States that Russia’s trade, investment and military-technical cooperation with Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal would not be hindered in any way by the sanctions imposed over the conflict in Ukraine.
“There has been a misunderstanding,” Jagaryan said.
The ambassador also called on the Iranian people to ignore stories from the foreign media, such as “Radio Yesterday”, a sarcastic phrase referring to Radio Farda (tomorrow) -the Persian branch of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty external broadcast service.
The envoy said the Russian government will talk about the issue with Iran, adding, “We will provide the Iranian side with the necessary explanations through diplomatic resources. We will officially explain the issue to the Iranian friends.”
The Vienna talks began last April between Iran and the five remaining parties to the JCPOA — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — on the assumption that the US, under the Joe Biden administration, is willing to repeal the so-called maximum pressure policy pursued by former president, Donald Trump.
Tehran says it won’t settle for anything less than the removal of all US sanctions in a verifiable manner. It also wants guarantees that Washington would not abandon the agreement again.