Cooperation between Tehran, Moscow in Syria brings positive results - Iranian lawmaker

ST. PETERSBURG, October 13. /TASS/. Cooperation between the Iranian and Russian foreign and defense ministries has helped improve the situation in Syria, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said at a meeting with Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, held on the sidelines of the 137th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Larijani stressed that "the nature of terrorism is migratory so the fight against is cannot be short-term." "There is a need to maintain effective cooperation in order to eradicate terrorism, work should be done on the cultural soil that could exert some influence," he added. At the same time, the Iranian parliament speaker said that some countries "use the terrorism issue as a tool to reach their own goals." "Yes, they claim to be fighting against terrorism but behind the scenes they support terrorists," Larijani noted. "So I think that the foundation that our ministries and agencies have laid in connection with security issues should be maintained and developed." "We have very positive experience in the fight against terrorism, particularly in Syria, where our cooperation has brought results," Larijani pointed out. "From the very beginning we believed that there should be a political solution to the Syria issue and not a military one," he said. "However, you know very well that some countries have created a crisis there, so cooperation between Iran and Russia was of strategic importance," the Iranian parliament speaker said addressing Volodin. "Cooperation between Iran and Russia was particularly successful in the security sphere," he noted. "Our cooperation goes hand in hand with the Astana process, these two aspects have been complementing each other," the senior Iranian lawmaker noted. "We can see that the war against terrorism in Iraq is nearing its end, while in Syria there is a lot of work to be done," he said adding that "there are some factors that have been affecting the issue." Bilateral relations "In the past years, our bilateral relations in the fields of politics, economy and security became more structured," the Iranian parliament speaker stated. "Numerous meetings between Mr. Putin and Mr. Rouhani point to the depth of relations between our countries," Larijani added. According to him, consultations between the Iranian and Russian foreign ministers and Security Council secretaries, as well as between security agencies, also prove the high level of relations between Tehran and Moscow. Read more