Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on Iran to help the resumption of the negotiation process over its nuclear issue. “Russia hopes that Iran will choose a position that will allow reversing the acuity of the nuclear problem and resuming the negotiation process,” he said at his talks with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Safari in Moscow on Monday. Lavrov said that it was planned to discuss at the meeting the “nuclear problem of Iran, the situation around which is exacerbating”. Safari said that Tehran and Moscow “support the dialogue on the nuclear problem”. He cited the recent visit to Iran of Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov. “We hope that this dialogue will get a continuation and we shall see other high-level visits,” Safari said. Lavrov said at his talks with his French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy last week that at an irregular meeting of the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency) on the Iranian nuclear issue due to be held in Vienna on February 2-3, “Russia will orient itself toward assessments of the agency”. Asked whether Iran’s nuclear dossier should be sent to the UN Security Council, he said that the “main thing is not to make a sensation but to guide ourselves by something more important: the prevention of violations of the non-proliferation regime”. Lavrov agreed with the French colleague that “it should be understood first which method is more effective -- a scalpel or therapy”. “It is the principle ‘do not harm’, in this case, do not harm to the world community, do not harm to the non-proliferation regime,” he said. (Itar-Tass)