DOHA (Reuters) – Qatar’s foreign minister will travel to Moscow on Sunday to discuss Iranian nuclear talks and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a source familiar with the visit said.

The source said Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, whose gas-producing country is an ally of the United States, would meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Eleven-month-old talks in Vienna to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are at risk of collapsing after a last-minute Russian demand forced world powers to suspend talks despite a largely completed text.

Russia wants guarantees that its trade with Iran will not be affected by sanctions imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine – a demand that Western powers find unacceptable and that Washington has insisted it does not wouldn’t accept.

Sheikh Mohammed discussed the nuclear talks in separate phone calls with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Saturday, Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a tweet.

The talks in Vienna aim to bring Iran back into line with the pact’s restrictions on its rapidly advancing nuclear activities and bring the United States back to the deal it left in 2018 under former President Donald Trump.

On Thursday, Qatar’s ruling emir met with Bektum Rostam, a special envoy of the Ukrainian president, to discuss diplomatic efforts to end the war, the official Qatar News Agency reported.

(Reporting by Andrew Mills; Editing by Mark Potter)

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