Interview with Ebrahim Rahimpour;

Iran-Russia-Azerbaijani meeting to send special message to Trump

EghtesadOnline: The meeting between Iran, Russia and Azerbaijan Republic would send a message to Americans that the regional countries are expanding their relations and not paying attention to what they say, Iran's deputy foreign minister stressed.

News ID: ۷۸۰۲۰۵

31 October 2017

“While US President Donald Trump and other American officials are acting monopolistically in various fields including economy and commerce, but this trilateral meeting between the presidents of Iran, Russia and Azerbaijan Republic sends the message that regional countries can have very strong partnerships in transit, banking and economy,” deputy foreign minister for Asia-Pacific affairs, Ebrahim Rahimpour said in an exclusive interview with ISNA.

“During the presidency of Mr. Hassan Rouhani multilateral meetings between Iran and other countries have increased and also had positive effects,” Rahimpour added.

“Regional cooperation including holding trilateral meetings will also send signals to the countries that place in the south of Iran and do not choose the path of negotiation and once again proves that it is necessary for the regional countries to manage the existing tensions themselves and help each other’s development by offering constructive economic and political proposals. This is something we always emphasize,” he went on to say.

Rahimpour noted that during Wednesday meeting the officials will discuss strengthening the cooperation between the three countries in fields of fighting terrorism and extremism, tourism, economy, trade, agriculture, food products, security, transit.

“Regional and international issues, Iran nuclear deal, Astana peace talks, the latest developments in Syria and the region as a whole will comprise other topics of discussion in the trilateral meeting,” he said.

Elsewhere in this interview, the deputy emphasized that according to the statistics the tourism has grown significantly between Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Armenia and Georgia.

“Tourism between Iran and these five countries has grown considerably with respect to visa waiver, facilitating the process of issuing visa, cheap trips and increasing flights,” he said.

Referring to the flooding of terrorists in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, Rahimpour said, “We have been discussed this issue in the Political- Security Committee between Iran and Afghanistan. We have also talked to Afghan officials about the issue through other military and intelligence channels and the negotiations will be continued”.

“Unfortunately these days Afghanistan is the target of terrorist attacks. The new strategy of Americans in the region and their efforts to stay more, upsets public opinion in Afghanistan and some of them consider it as an incentive to increase the activities of terrorist groups in Afghanistan,” he said.

About Iran’s talks with Japan as well as Tokyo and Seoul’s requests from Iran to help them resolve North Korea nuclear crisis, Rahimpour said, “There have been several rounds of talks with Japanese officials in recent months. It is natural for South Korea and Japan not to be satisfied with the situation in the region. We understand their concerns and have strongly said that we want peace and stability in Korean peninsula and oppose to nuclear weapons”.

“Such weapons should be controlled in the world especially in critical areas. On the other hand, we support UN resolutions relating to the North Korea nuclear tests,” he went on to say.

“We have no military cooperation with North Korea and our economic collaboration with the country is so limit that we can say there is no cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang. To solve the Korean crisis, we recommend the win-win model that Iran followed in the negotiation with 5+1,” the deputy insisted.