Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and I have just come back after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. After that, we held talks at our level, and we can state that today's discussions allowed us to cover the whole range of relations between Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran both in terms of bilateral plans and the international agenda.

In our bilateral talks we focused on the agreements that were reached in March this year during the visit of President Hassan Rouhani to Russia. We confirmed that all departments are working well, and stressed the importance of further active efforts by the Intergovernmental Commission for Trade and Economic Cooperation, the High-Level Committee on Industry and Trade and the Commission for Military Technical Cooperation.

Particular attention was paid to cooperation in nuclear energy. The first unit of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant already produces electricity at full capacity. Now there is a negotiation process on preparations for the construction of the second unit. We also talked about major projects for the electrification of railways in Iran and the construction of thermal power plants to be implemented very soon.

As for international affairs, we paid special attention to Syria for understandable reasons. All the agreements that formed the basis of the Astana process and the creation of de-escalation zones were reaffirmed. Tomorrow and the day after, our representatives, together with our Turkish counterparts and observers from the United States, Jordan, as well as UN representatives in Astana, will complete work on the zone to be set up near Idlib. We expect a successful meeting.

We considered the situation regarding the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear programme. The Russian side, as well as IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, attest to Iran's full compliance with all its obligations.

We discussed Caspian issues. The discussions on the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea are entering the final stage. In the coming weeks, we expect to hold a regular meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Caspian Countries.

More broadly, we are interested in ensuring that the situation in the Persian Gulf is normalised and that the Arab countries and Iran have opportunities for dialogue, taking into account one another's concerns and seeking agreements that will allow this region to develop steadily and according to the principles of neighbourliness.

Mr Zarif and I agreed to continue our dialogue in the UN at the UN General Assembly session next week.