FM: Comprehensive Iran-Russia agreement to be signed by late March
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian spoke in a TV documentary on diplomacy on the continuation of consultations in drafting the Tehran-Moscow comprehensive agreement, ensuring that it will be signed by Iranian year-end (March 23, 2023).
Hossein Amirabdollahian spoke on Tuesday evening about the "untold stories during the President Ebrahim Raisi government's foreign diplomacy over last year", saying, "During the first months of the 13th government we faced the COVID-19 disease crisis and the Health Ministry managed to allocate 1.2 billion US dollars for imports of COVID-19 vaccines."
The top Iranian diplomat elsewhere in the interview stressed that the Islamic Republic of Iran will use its entire potential and capacities to secure the nation's interests, either in the west, or in the east, and will not abandon any effort.
Turning to the Ukraine war, he said, "In the 2nd month after the outbreak of the in Ukraine both Russia and Ukraine asked Iran to mediate for a ceasefire."
He referred to Iran's peace-making efforts, brokering for a ceasefire, and bringing the two sides of the war to the peace table, adding, "Yet the western side by keeping on forwarding arms to the region prolongs the war."
The foreign minister also referred to the trilateral summit meeting of Iran, Russia, and Turkey in Tehran to harbinger peace in Syria, saying, "Definitely it was not accidental that that meeting in continuation of the Astana Peace Process was held in Tehran, carrying messages both for the regional countries and the world, and have bilateral achievements for all three participating countries."
Focusing on the latest status of the nuclear talks to remove the sanctions, Amirabdollahian said that Iran's objective is reaching a good and sustainable agreement, but reliable guarantees, are needed.
He said that Iran has not left the negotiation table, but is not ready for accepting imposed losses instead of securing "our national interests".
"One of the problems is that the guarantees are clearly defined, but the details about lifting the sanctions are not clearly defined yet," he added.
Talking about the untold demands of the westerners in the nuclear talks, the foreign minister said that on the sidelines of the JCPOA negotiations "we faced the Americans' request about Iran's black list on the 60 people who were involved in the assassination of Martyr Soleimani, asking us to abandon that black list, but we rejected that request".
On Azerbaijan and Armenia republics' border dispute, Amirabdollahian said, "Iran will not permit the blockage of its connection route with Armenia and in order o secure that objective the Islamic Republic of Iran also launched a wargame in that region."
About the latest status of Iran-Saudi negotiations, he said, "The Saudis have lately announced they are ready to have a political meeting in Tehran, and we hope for the implementation of the agreements reached in the 5th round of our bilateral meeting before that."
On sabotages of the racist Zionist regime and the weakness of some Arab and other regional countries in naturalizing ties with that regime, he said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran's timely warnings and resolute stands in the field, and the reactions of the regional people halted, or at least slowed down the compromise trend with the Zionists."