Moscow welcomes new Iranian authorities' active foreign policy
MOSCOW. Nov 19 (Interfax) - Moscow welcomes the active participation of the new Iranian authorities in the global arena aimed at searching for solutions of long-standing problems, including the Iranian nuclear issue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We welcome the active nature of Iran's foreign policy, which obviously has a positive direction, because it is possible to act negatively as well," Lavrov said in an interview with the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper published on Tuesday.
Such active policies were observed in recent history, from Iran as well as other countries of the region, the Russian minister said.
"The current activity of Iran within the global arena is clearly aimed at the search for solutions of long-standing problems, including the Iranian nuclear issue," Lavrov was quoted as saying.
In particular, the latest round of talks between the Sextet and Iran held at the level of foreign ministers showed that "Tehran is seriously prepared to resolve issues, on which the global community focused and for which it demanded solutions for many years," Lavrov said.
Iran has just signed a memorandum on nuclear energy with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Russian minister said.
"It stipulates the order of joint actions taken by Tehran and the Agency in order to remove all suspicions and to allow the IAEA to more effectively control what Iran is currently doing when enriching uranium and to limit this enrichment solely to the demands for fuel production for the nuclear energy industry, in the amounts reflecting the real energy needs of Iran," Lavrov said.
"These are very serious steps," the minister said.
"The readiness to stop the forms of enrichment which are dangerous in terms of nuclear weapons proliferation and allow those that safe in terms of peaceful nuclear energy, to allow the Agency to control this program so that it is not redirected for some goals that are not peaceful - this is what the group 3+3 (three European countries, the United States, Russia and China) aspired to with the support of the managing council of the IAEA and UN Security Council all these years," Lavrov was quoted as saying.
"We are convinced that progress, which was outlined at the Geneva meetings, has become possible thanks to our partners realizing that we were correct," Lavrov said.