Iranian senior official says the United States and the European members of the P5+1 group should honor their obligations under a nuclear deal with Iran.
"We expect the Western states to avoid declaring stances that harm the progress of [the nuclear] talks and the agreements reached in Geneva," Iran's deputy foreign minister for European and American Affairs Majid Takht-e-Ravanchi said in reference to an interim deal reached previously between the two sides in the Swiss city, the country's Press TV reported on April 1.
The Iranian official made the remarks in a meeting with Finland's foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja in Helsinki on March 31.
Takht-e-Ravanchi, who is also an Iranian nuclear negotiator, reaffirmed that the Islamic Republic had entered the negotiations with the P5+1 - Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany - with "goodwill."
As acknowledged by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has fulfilled its commitments under the interim nuclear accord it signed with the six other countries in Geneva, , last November, Takht-e-Ravanchi said.
The Finnish foreign minister, for his part, hailed the progress in the negotiations between Tehran and the P5+1, expressing hope that the two sides would reach a final nuclear deal as soon as possible.
Iran and its negotiating partners have been holding talks in an effort to work out a permanent accord aimed at fully resolving the decade-old dispute over Tehran's nuclear energy program.
In a new monthly update on March 20, the IAEA confirmed that Iran has not violated the terms of the Geneva nuclear deal, which took effect on January 20.
The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies. The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical research instead.