🇷🇺🇮🇷 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with the President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi

📍 Tehran, October 23

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#BRICS2024

🇷🇺🇮🇷 Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian held a meeting on the sidelines of the #BRICS Summit in Kazan.

💬 Vladimir Putin: This visit to Russia is your first as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and this has great symbolic importance.

Iran has become a full participant of BRICS, and you know that we strongly supported your application. Earlier, we also vigorously promoted your accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. This has given us additional opportunities for cooperation in the international arena.

Recently, we had a very substantive and, I am sure, useful meeting in Ashgabat, where we reviewed the main aspects of bilateral cooperation and the most relevant regional issues. Most importantly, we reaffirmed our policy of mutually strengthening ties in every possible way. Our interaction is on the rise; it is genuinely friendly and constructive. Soon we will be able to consolidate the results achieved with a new major interstate agreement on comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and Iran.

We are grateful to you for accepting the invitation to pay a separate visit to our country to sign this document and other important documents in a ceremonial atmosphere.

As I said in Ashgabat, one of our priorities is to consolidate the emerging positive trends in trade and economic cooperation. We expect this issue to be addressed by the intergovernmental commission, chaired by our Minister of Energy, Mr Tsivilev, and Iranian Minister of Petroleum Mohsen Paknejad.

Other priorities include the implementation of major joint initiatives such as the development of Iranian railway infrastructure as part of promoting a major project, the International North-South Transport Corridor project, as well as the construction of the second and third power units at the Bushehr NPP.

📊 Indeed, the Free Trade Agreement signed between Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union at the close of 2023 significantly contributes to the expansion of economic ties.

Cultural and humanitarian cooperation is likewise making good progress. Notably, an intergovernmental agreement concerning the establishment and operation of cultural centres came into effect in July of this year. Moreover, the visa-free regime for organised groups of tourists, operational since August of the previous year, is actively fostering an increase in mutual tourist exchange – a 52-percent growth was observed in 2023.

Today, we will continue our discussions on the most pressing international issues, including the dramatic developments in the Middle East, as well as the situations in Syria and the South Caucasus.

🤝 Generally speaking, I would like to emphasise that the approaches of Russia and Iran towards the global agenda are closely aligned or fully coincide. We are united by a shared aspiration to establish a just multipolar world order, to uphold international norms, and to maintain the pivotal role of the United Nations.

I would also like to take this opportunity to extend my greetings and best wishes to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. We hold in high regard his attentive and constructive approach to the development of Russian-Iranian relations.

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