Lavrov, who was speaking at a news conference in the Italian city of Trieste on Friday, touched upon Iran's nuclear issue, Ria Novosti reported.

"A peaceful settlement on Iran's nuclear issue needs to be reached," Lavrov said. "I don't think that the Iranian leadership will make any changes in its position and we need to be ready to have patience."

Russia along with other four permanent members of the UN Security Council- -the US, UK, France and China- - plus Germany are discussing Iran's nuclear dossier.

While the UNSC, under US pressure, has adopted three rounds of sanctions against Iran over its uranium enrichment work, Moscow disagrees to pile up pressure on Tehran and rejects any 'violent solution' to the issue. Russia says diplomacy could best solve the matter.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, whose country hosts the meeting of eight industrialized nations (G8), also said that the doors needed to remain open for Iran but maintained that "dialogue should not exist just for the purpose of dialogue."

Frattini said the world community needed to understand how Iran would respond to the calls for dialogue "in the next few months" because the issue will be brought up at the UN General Assembly in September.

The P5+1 earlier invited Iran to return to the negotiating table. Iran says it is open to the negotiations only within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

US President Barack Obama said in a White House news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday that 'multilateral discussions' with Iran on the country's nuclear program will continue.