Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman said on Friday that Moscow believes that the Iran nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is still topical and has no other alternatives.

Iran PressEurope: "This deal has not lost its topicality, and all UN Security Council member nations, including, by the way, the United States, must observe it. We insist on that," Maria Zakharova said.

"As for any possible alternatives to the restoration of the JCPOA, the Russian side insists that there is no alternative to the JCPOA," she added.

Reiterating Russia's "unchanged" stance from the very beginning of the work on the JCPOA conclusion, Zakharova said, "Correspondingly, when the United States began to break it down and withdraw from it unilaterally, saying they are special and that is why they quit it, we still insisted that this document had no alternatives."

"When Washington changed its position again, this time in favor of this agreement, we stuck to our former position and that is why we take part in these talks as real partners to restore this deal as soon as possible," the Russian diplomat pointed out.

Russia’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov also said on Friday that the Vienna negotiators must orient themselves towards the successful completion of the talks as soon as possible.

In a tweet, the Russian lead negotiator to the Vienna talks added that Iran and the five remaining parties to the JCPOA are expected to preferably complete the negotiations "by the beginning of February."

In another tweet, Ulyanov warned that setting any "artificial deadlines" for the end of the Vienna talks would be "harmful" and explained that a time period between late January and early February "is about a timeline" and Russia would not accept any "deadline".

"Progress at the talks depends on very many factors and can not be accurately calculated in advance. At this stage the beginning of February seems to be a realistic timeline," he said in a Twitter post.

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