Moscow: Iran-Russia Cooperation Not Affected by West Pressure, Sanctions
MOSCOW - Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that external pressure and sanctions cannot impede her country’s cooperation with Iran, stressing that the ongoing illegal restrictions will only help boost the mutual relations.
She said on Monday that Russia and Iran “are cultivating mutually beneficial cooperation” with paying no heed to the West’s opinion, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.
“External pressure and sanctions are no obstacle for that. Rather quite the opposite, the illegitimate restrictions even have the ability to help strengthen the positive tendencies of the growth in Russia-Iranian trade, which had emerged over the past years,” Zakharova added.
The Russian diplomat emphasized that Tehran and Moscow managed to increase trade cooperation by 20.2% in 2022 “and nearly reached five billion U.S. dollars.”
“Businessmen are entering new markets and occupying product niches. Logistics and payment infrastructure are being enhanced,” she said.
“It creates conditions for the further
expansion of bilateral cooperation, first and foremost, in the trade-and-economic sphere,” the spokeswoman pointed out.
She emphasized that the two countries are moving in the path of safeguarding the interests of their peoples.
Iran and Russia both have been targeted with U.S.-led sanctions in recent years, but the sanctions have failed to secure Western countries’ interests.
Russia has been targeted with draconian sanctions following its February “special military operation” in neighboring Ukraine. The U.S. has also tightened its sanctions on Iran since 2018, when Washington unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in pursuit of a more confrontational policy toward Tehran.