Amid Russia’s ongoing special military operations in Ukraine, Moscow is all set to finalise the draft of a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with Iran. The draft may get finalised in April, as per a TASS report that quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
On Wednesday, March 29th, Amir-Abdollahian said that various delegations of Iran and Russia are meeting regularly to finalise the draft of Russia’s comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with Iran. He claimed that the delegates are discussing various issues at present.
“I am very grateful that the draft of a comprehensive agreement on strategic partnership between our countries has been reviewed and finalised in Russia”, Amir-Abdollahian told TASS in Moscow, where he met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The Iranian foreign minister also said, “I sincerely hope that within the next month, the legal departments of our countries’ foreign ministries will finalise the draft of this agreement”. “I would like to point out that we are, of course, in the final stages before signing this agreement”, Amir-Abdollahian added.
Expressing hope in the ongoing Iran-Russia partnership dialogue, Amir-Abdollahian said, “Our presidents—Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi—maintain constant and direct contact. Our interaction in regional and international organisations continues swimmingly”.
Iran-Russia ties have developed stronger in recent times, especially after Russia entered Syria to protect the pro-Tehran Bashar al-Assad government from an alleged CIA-funded coup. Russia has helped the Iran-sponsored troops to fight against Islamic State (ISIS)
Russia’s involvement in Iranian political matters has come under sharper criticism from the West, which has been trying to project Tehran as a global pariah due to its reluctance to give up its civil nuclear programme.
