Ali Akbar Velayati met with director of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI) on Tuesday and said that, “in recent months, Iran and Russia have had closer cooperation and they share common interests being neighbor countries.”
“According to the ongoing process in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Palestine, the two countries need to have close and practical collaborations based on common views,” he continued.
The official further asserted that, “these crisis-afflicted countries are in our neighborhood and certainly whatever that takes place in these countries will affect our national security and should not be ignored."
“Russia’s determination with regard to the issue of Syria is of strategic value and importance,” reiterated Velayati.
Russian official Leonid Reshetnikov, for his part, stated that, “Iran is Russia’s only partner on regional issues and Russia has always deemed Iran as its first ally in Asia as well as in international arena.”
“Russia will not limit itself to the region and we hope that cooperation between Iran and Russia will extend to trans-regional fields as well,” added Reshetnikov.
Referring to the speech made by Putin to the General Assembly of the United Nations, he noted that, “yesterday, the Russian President officially announced the alliance among Iran, Russia, Iraq, and Syria which was a step towards strategic partnership and we can cooperate in this context as well.”
The advisor to Russia's Putin, Reshetnikov further noted that, “Russia deems increased cooperation with Iran as the most important task; we will make effort to remove the present barriers on improving economic ties.”
“Tehran and Moscow need to promote their humanitarian relations and as the heads of research centers in Iran and Russia, we must hold more frequent meetings in order to increase interactions between the two countries,” Reshetnikov concluded.
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