Talks in Moscow on Tuesday [January 26] between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov centered on rescuing the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Lavrov said ahead of talks that “one of the most pressing topics” was the nuclear deal. “We have heard many statements from Joe Biden’s team, which…particularly mentioned plans to return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” the official Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying. “If it happens, we will certainly welcome it.”

Following the talks, Zarif thanked Moscow for efforts to repair the JCPOA since United States withdrawal in May 2018. He praised Russia’s “constructive and principled” position.

President Biden has expressed his intention to return to the JCPOA with aides saying they will first consult regional countries such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. Tehran says it would honor its JCPOA commitments if US sanctions are lifted as required by the JCPOA. On Monday Zarif reiterated Iran’s demand that Washington should compensate Iran for damage caused by stringent sanctions levied by Trump after he left the JCPOA and set new demands including Iran ending uranium enrichment and scrapping missile defense.

Zarif arrived in Moscow from Baku on a tour designed to review the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed enclave at the center of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan in September-November 2020. The war’s aftermath, with Armenia yielding some territory, was reported by Tass to be a main topic of the Zarif-Lavrov talks. Moscow and Tehran have similar views on Nagorno-Karabakh and have repeatedly discussed the issue since war erupted in September.

Zarif also announced in Moscow that Iranian health authorities had on Monday registered and approved Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine and that Tehran planned both to import and jointly produce it “in the near future.”

Earlier in January, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned importing vaccines from the US and Britain, a decision that appeared to be sidestepped by a subsequent decision to import the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from India’s Serum Institute, where is it being produced under license. Iran has reported over 1.38 million Covid cases and 57,560 deaths, according to government data released on Tuesday, with a recent decline in new infections after lockdowns.