Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke out against Moscow’s key ally Iran suspending cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), after Iranian lawmakers voted in favour of halting work with the UN nuclear agency, AFP reports.

“We are interested in continuing cooperation between Iran and the IAEA, so that everybody respects Iran’s repeated statements that Iran does not have and will not have plans to develop a nuclear weapon,” Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow.