Russian President Vladimir Putin has put Iran on notice that it will be on its own if Tehran overreacts to the United States’ maximum pressure campaign by lashing out militarily or pulling out of the 2015 nuclear deal.

“As soon as Iran undertakes some counter-measures, declares it’s going to abandon some [parts of the agreement], the next day everyone will forget that the US was the first to initiate the collapse of the deal and Iran will take the full burden of guilt for it,” he said at a press conference following a meeting with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen in Sochi.

Why it matters: The remarks came right after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Russia for talks on the nuclear deal with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Sources in Moscow who spoke with Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity said there was a sense that Pompeo came with a message of reconciliation from President Donald Trump while subtly appealing for Russia’s neutrality in a possible conflict between the United States and Iran.

"The Iranian nuclear deal was briefly discussed," Putin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov told TASS. "We laid out our approach, as it is critical of the recent actions of the US administration. The president and the secretary of state have spent some time discussing possible developments around Iran. I would say that it was an interesting discussion."