Iran warns against allowing Israeli regime foothold in region
President Hassan Rouhani has told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that allowing the illegal Zionist entity a foothold in the Persian Gulf region is “dangerous,” given the fact that the regime is a “destabilizing and provocative” element.
According to reports, in a Tuesday meeting with the visiting Russian foreign minister, President Rouhani stressed that the security and stability of the region had to be maintained, and expressed Iran’s willingness to work with regional states toward that end.
The president also said that the expansion of regional cooperation would be a strategic measure to counter the United States’ acts of unilateralism.
He said regional security was a matter for the regional countries to take care of, and also reaffirmed the importance of the expanding defense and military cooperation between Iran and Russia since October last year, when a United Nations (UN) arms embargo on the country expired under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“Today, America and the whole world have come to the conclusion that maximum pressure has failed, and America’s sole path back to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is the termination of all sanctions [on Iran],” President Rouhani said.
The president stressed that Iran expected a full return to the contractual obligations and agreements made in 2015 and expected all parties to the Iran nuclear deal to fulfill the pledges they made that year. He said Iran would neither accept “less…, nor would it want… more.”
Rouhani also emphasized cooperation between Iran and Russia to revive the agreement in light of the United States’ asserted willingness to return to compliance with the deal.
The president also pointed to regional issues, including the conflicts in Yemen and Syria, and stressed the importance of continued cooperation and consultations between Iran and Russia as two influential countries in the region to find a solution to those matters.
He said Tehran and Moscow enjoyed good political and regional cooperation and urged the two sides to bolster economic relations and accelerate the implementation of joint economic agreements and projects in the fields of oil, energy, and transportation.
Rouhani pointed to Russia’s achievements in fighting COVID-19 and its success in developing vaccines to combat the deadly disease, and said the dispatch of the Russian-made vaccines to Iran needed to be accelerated.
He also called for the launch of a joint vaccine production line in Iran.
Lavrov stresses cooperation
The Russian FM said Iran and Russia aimed to expand regional and international cooperation.
Lavrov said there would be no limits to the expansion of cooperation between the two countries, including in the field of defense.
He pointed to recent talks between the remaining parties to the Iran deal in the Austrian capital of Vienna and the US’s willingness to rejoin the nuclear deal and said Moscow believed that Washington’s unconditional and complete return to the agreement and its compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 2231 would be the only solution to the ongoing diplomatic impasse over the accord.
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