Blinken says new Russia demands on Iran nuclear deal ‘irrelevant’

WASHINGTON, (HRNW) – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday dismissed as “irrelevant” Russian demands for guarantees that new sanctions linked to Ukraine will not affect Moscow s rights under a reworked Iran nuclear deal.

With the parties to the Iran agreement, which the US abandoned in 2018, now seemingly close to a new accord, Blinken rejected fresh demands voiced Saturday by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine “have nothing to do with the Iran nuclear deal,” Blinken said on CBS talk show “Face the Nation.”

They “just are not in any way linked together, so I think that s irrelevant,” he said, speaking from Moldova, a small country on Ukraine s southwest border.

Blinken said it was not only in America s interest but Russia s as well that Iran not be able “to have a nuclear weapon or the capacity to produce a weapon on very, very short order.”