Russia has no plan to interfere in Iran presidential election

EghtesadOnline: "Levan Jagarian” Russian ambassador to Iran in an interview with ILNA correspondent has discussed some of current important issues about regional and international issues, developments and events like Astana summit, drafting Syrian constitutional amendments in Arabic by Russia, prospects of Russia and US militaristic cooperation in Syria and bilateral relations with Iran.

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14 February 2017

The third part is focused on Iran and Russia bilateral relation.

ILNA: There are lots of issues in Iran and Russia bilateral relations. Purchasing weapons and building nuclear plant are among them. Regarding the implementation of these commitments about Iran, how do you describe Russia’s approach and perspective toward them?

JAGARIAN: About weapons sales, I have to say that there are international commitment and rules that we have to follow. In case such weapon sales and further developments of our interrelations don’t harm these international obligations, we don’t see a problem in letting the negotiations go on.

There were talks about Sukhoi Superjet 100 (a sokho airliner), and a message from “Alexander Novak”, Russian energy minister about these negotiations has been delivered to “Mahmoud Vaezi”, Iranian communication minister.

About the JCPOA, I have to say that Russia is supporting the deal which has resulted from an international joint action. Although we have to say that Russia realizes that Iranians might be disappointed about US action in this area.

There are also other important projects which Russia has participated in them. These projects include supplying electrical power of Garmsar – Inche Broon, rail road and the construction of Hormozgan Thermal power plant. In the next few days, I’m going to visit the Hormozgan project since “Igor Shuvalov”, Russian deputy prime minister is going to visit Iran in near future.

ILNA: Is the exact amount of Russian investment in Iran adds up to 2.2 billion Euro?

JAGARIAN: Yes that’s true and the agreement was signed by “Hassan Rohani”, Iran’s president and “Vladimir Putin”, Russian president on November 2015 and was underlined on joint commission summit from the two countries economic ministers. The agreement is now in the execution phase.

ILNA: At the end of our conversation, if there's anything else you might want to add?

JAGARIAN: All the important issues in Russian - Iranian bilateral relations have been discussed and the major topics in our foreign policy have been elaborated here. But at the end I'd like to express my concern about some of Iranian media. Few weeks ago a news agency in Iran has published an article, accusing Russia of interfering in Iranian internal politics. The article was about to say that Russian interference in US election would happen in Iranian case. As the Russian federation ambassador to Tehran, I strongly deny this.

In 2013 election in Iran, some asked me about my opinion about who’s going to win the election. At that time I told the reporters that we do not have any preference over the candidate and each candidate would earn our respect as a president and we can deal with them. This is due to the fact the Iran has special place in Russia’s foreign policies and every Iranian president had good relations with us which is because of our traditional and historic relations. Up until now we have kept our relations and therefore I can say that I deny every Russian interference in this area.