President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Sunday discussed the situation in Iran and called on all the parties to show restraint.

"In the context of the tense situation around Iran, the Russian and French presidents stressed the necessity for all the parties to show restraint and spoke in favor of further efforts towards saving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action," the press service said and added that the two leaders also discussed issues of the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict and the situation in Syria.

Iranian General Soleimani and the acting commander of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) - known as the Hash al-Shaabi - Abu Mahdi Al-Mohandes were targeted and assassinated by the US forces while they were separately leaving Baghdad airport in two cars on January 3. 

The U.S. and Iran nearly entered into an open conflict on 8 January 2020 when the IRGC launched missile attack against two Iraqi military bases housing U.S. soldiers in retaliation for the killing of Soleimani, a rare direct Iran-U.S. confrontation and the closest to the brink of war between the 2 nations in decades. (ILKHA)