Hassan Rouhani made the remarks during the trilateral meeting Iran-Russia-Azerbaijan in Baku on Monday adding “development of cooperation with neighbor states remains as a top priority in Iran’s foreign diplomacy as we welcome all sorts of ideas and initiatives for collaboration with neighbors.”
He outlined the trilateral meeting as a positive and precious measure asserting “holding of the meeting, which relies on good relations between the three countries, gains momentous in view of current conditions in the world and region as well as the determination to further deepen existing ties.”
“Given their geographical and geopolitical position, the three states are faced with numerous issues, opportunities, challenges as well as common threats in political, economic, cultural, social, technological and environmental arenas,” stressed President Rouhani emphasizing the need to bolster mutual cooperation.
The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that collaboration with other countries, neighbors in particular, is a mandatory prerequisite to achieving an acceptable level of peace, welfare and development; otherwise, no nation would be able to confront challenges or exploit opportunities single-handedly, said the Iranian president.
He went on to note that Iran’s policy towards other countries relies on cooperation, synergy and seeking ways to fulfil common interests which yields win-win outcomes.
“Accordingly, we deem multilateral discourse as a highly effective and essential mechanism,” underlined Rouhani adding “numerous commonalities among the three countries in cultural, religious and social fields are also proper grounds offering vast opportunities offering for expansion of trilateral ties.”
Hassan Rouhani further enumerated common challenges facing the region including terrorism, extremism, interference of trans regional powers, political exploitation of economic sanctions, environmental problems, drugs and organized crimes which all demand serious confrontation.
“World and regional developments in recent years have been a testimony to the fact that majority of existing challenges can be dealt with and overcome by cooperation, collaboration and mutual understanding,” maintained the Iranian President.
He further touched upon separate agreements reached with Azerbaijan and Russia over the past years in numerous arenas including customs deals, contract to join rail grids of Iran and Azerbaijan, the deal to construct a rail bridge over Astarachai river, bringing dams and power plants into stream, bilateral ties with Russia over nuclear issues for reaching an agreement with the 5+1 group of countries as well as joint collaboration between the two countries for resolving the Syrian crisis.
President Rouhani underscored that these agreements remain as perfect examples of regional cooperation which can also be extended to other common areas in order to boost trilateral ties.
“Obviously, a trilateral arrangement would be against any country; rather, it would act as a framework for talks focused on the development of regional cooperation among the three countries,” continued the official saying “therefore, I would take the honor to recommend Tehran as the venue for the next trilateral summit.”
Rouhani also said unfortunately, numerous capacities for reinvigoration of trade and economic relations among the three states have not been fully exploited due to several reasons; “therefore, inking of trilateral agreements and MoUs takes on an added importance.”
He further urged heads of the three states’ joint commission to hold sessions in order to investigate venues for escalation of cooperation, investment and launch of joint projects.
At the end of his remarks, Iran’s President underlined that “regional disputes and conflicts need to be dealt with merely through dialogues, negotiations and peaceful methods and all capacities should be exploited for confronting terrorism and extremism at regional and international levels.”
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