Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Sunday said Washington should abandon “the language of ultimatums” and return to negotiations, in a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, his office said.
Lavrov’s comments came after US President Donald Trump threatened in an expletive-laden post Sunday to strike Iran’s power plants and bridges if it did not reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz.
“The Russian side expressed hope that the efforts undertaken by a number of states to de-escalate tensions around Iran will be successful,” said a Moscow read-out of Lavrov’s conversation with Iran’s Abbas Araghchi.
That, it added, “would be facilitated by the United States abandoning the language of ultimatums and returning the situation to a negotiating track”.