Moscow expects to sign new co-operation pact with Iran in ‘very near future’, RIA reports

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(Reuters) – Moscow expects to sign a new agreement on comprehensive cooperation with Iran “in the very near future,” Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko told Russia’s RIA state news agency in an interview published on Tuesday.

“We expect that this agreement will be signed in the very near future, since work on the text is already close to completion. All the necessary wording has been found,” RIA cited Rudenko as saying.

Earlier in June, Russia’s foreign ministry said that work on the agreement was temporarily suspended, while Iran said there was no break in preparing the new pact.

Russia and Iran signed a 20-year strategic agreement in 2001 that was automatically extended in 2020 for five years, according to Russia’s TASS state news agency reports. Both sides also agreed in 2020 to work on a new pact that would replace the old document.

The 2001 pact called, among others, for cooperation in security, energy projects, including the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the construction of nuclear power plants, industry and technology, according to its text published on the Kremlin’s website.

Very few details have emerged on what the new agreement would include. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in 2022 and subsequent sanctions on Moscow by Kyiv’s allies, Russia and Iran have firmed investment, military and energy ties.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Michael Perry)