Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, meeting with his Russian counterpart in Moscow, “welcome[d] the Russian government's initiatives to strengthen Iran-IAEA relations” and affirmed: “we will not allow the IAEA to become a tool in the hands of the Trump administration to destroy the JCPOA”. In turn, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that “we are determined to counter any attempts to use the situation to manipulate the UN Security Council and promote the anti-Iranian agenda… We will undoubtedly raise the issue within all multilateral international formats”. Lavrov also indicated that he and Zarif had “underlined the important of preserving this agreement [ie, JCPOA] in spite of the brazen destructive policy advanced by the U.S. as it remains an important element of maintaining international security”.