MOSCOW, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation Thursday with President of the European Council Charles Michel to exchange views on pressing international issues, the Kremlin said in a statement.
The parties examined in detail the Libyan crisis, including in the context of preparations for the international conference on Libya scheduled for Dec. 19 in Berlin, the statement said.
While discussing the situation around Iran, Putin and Michel reaffirmed the importance of continuing to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, it said.
The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (permanent members of the United Nations Security Council -- the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China, plus Germany) and the European Union. Tehran had agreed to roll back parts of its nuclear weapons program in exchange for decreased economic sanctions.
Since its unilateral exit from the deal in 2018, Washington has been mounting pressure on Tehran through a series of sanctions. Iran has maintained a tough stance and scaled back its nuclear commitments in response.
On Tuesday, France, Britain and Germany announced that they had triggered the JCPOA dispute mechanism with the hope to preserve the deal and bring Iran back into full compliance with its commitments.
The Russian Foreign Ministry later on Tuesday called this step "profoundly disappointing and of serious concern" and warned that it could lead to a new escalation of the situation around the JCPOA and would make it impossible for the nuclear deal to be returned to the initially coordinated framework.
Putin and Michel also discussed the issue of settlement in the southeast of Ukraine, emphasizing the need for the parties to fully and unconditionally implement the decisions on the intra-Ukrainian conflict agreed by Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France, the statement said.
