Iran-Russia Co-op Meeting Held In Moscow

Moscow, March 4, IRNA – A meeting dubbed as ˈ Iran-Russia cooperation, current situation and outlooksˈ, was held in Moscow on Monday. The meeting was held in cooperation with Iranˈs embassy in Russia and Russian institute of Oreintology affiliated to Russiaˈs Science Academy with the aim of recognition and explanation of weak and strong points of old ties between the two countries. Iranˈs Ambassador to Moscow Mehdi Sanaei explained outlooks of relations and cooperation between Iran and Russia at the beginning of the session He said that the two countries should get ready to hold the 500 anniversary of establishment of official relations and now considering historical experiences and by relying on huge potential capacities, the two countries intend to open a new chapter of co-existence and mutual respect. Sanaei added that the two states are facing with challenges, threats and common opportunities in a wide range of issues like, development in Caucasus and Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, energy, Afghanistan, Drugs, terrorism, radicalism and expansion of NATO toward east, developments in the Middle East, Syria and important international issues such as nuclear energy and disarmament. Unfortunately, in spite of high potential and capacity and promotion of political cooperation, economic relations have decreased in the past years and continuation of such a trend is not beneficial for none of the two countries. Concerning sanctions, the ambassador said that unfortunately it seems that psychological effects of the US and west pressures on Russiaˈs economic bodies have been more than reality of the sanctions and the Russian economic bodies took the sanctions so seriously and lost many opportunities. Deputy head of Russiaˈs Oreintology Institute was the next speaker, who talked about very old relations of two countries. Head of Iran studies department of the Institute, for her part, expressed hope that the session bear useful results. She added that the Institute holds meetings annually about relations between Iran and Russia and this meeting, like years before, can be useful and cause developments of bilateral ties. The next speaker was an Iranian expert on Russian issues, Mahmoud Shouri, who spoke on relations level between the two countries. In part of his speech, Shouri talked about west efforts to decrease role of Iran and Russia in international level and added that considering the fact, the two states should develop their cooperation.