Balanced, friendly ties with Eurasia, Asia, Iran’s longstanding policy: Foreign ministry

The spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the country’s “longstanding policy” is to maintain “balanced, friendly” relations with all Eurasian and Asian powers.

“Our potential longterm cooperation agreements w/ #China & #Russia, & our continued joint work w/ #India in Chabahar prove this,” Abbas Mousavi said in a post on his Twitter page on Saturday.

He emphasized that Tehran is determined to uphold such a policy.

Mousavi’s tweet came as Iran seeks to sign long-term agreements with Russia and China to develop comprehensive cooperation.

In a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran-Russia relations are at their strongest in decades, adding that such sustainable ties will benefit both countries and guarantee global peace and security.

“Today, relations between Iran and Russia are at their highest peak in comparison to the previous decades and we hope that we will be able to maintain these relations all the more powerfully and in a longer-lasting fashion,” Zarif said.

He told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) earlier that the extension of a 20-year cooperation agreement with Russia, which will expire in March 2021, is on the agenda of talks between the two countries.

This comes as Iran and China also seek to finalize a long-term agreement, which was announced in a joint statement during a visit to Tehran by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2016.

The cooperation roadmap consists of 20 articles, covering Tehran-Beijing ties in “Political,” “Executive Cooperation,” “Human and Cultural,” “Judiciary, Security and Defense,” and “Regional and International” domains, according to the statement released back then.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Russia’s RT news channel, Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations, Majid Takht Ravanchi, said relations between Iran and China “go back centuries,” adding, “So, it is natural for these two countries to get together, to discuss different issues, [and] collaborate on many issues of interest to both sides, including in the field of economy.”

“So the agreement between Iran and China is not something unusual. We are in the process of finalizing the deal, which affects both countries,” as it “deals with many issues of interest for both sides and I think it is natural for … two countries to sign such an agreement provided that this is something necessary for two sides,” Iran’s envoy said.

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