Valdai Club

It is too early to talk about the establishment of a new international order, because the crisis, despite the suffering it has brought to humanity, is not so terrible that a new building could be built on its ruins, writes Mehdi Sanaei, senior lecturer of the Tehran University’s Department of International Relations, Head of the Centre for Iranian and Eurasian Studies, Senior Advisor to the Foreign Minister of Iran and former Iranian ambassador in Russia.

Iran believes that the emergence and the rooting of radical terrorist groups in the Middle East, as well as the bloody events in Syria and Iraq, are the result of the misguided policies of foreign powers in that region.

The advancement of wide-ranging ties with Russia holds a special place on Iran’s foreign policy agenda. Iran’s priority goals include, on the one hand, restoring its relations with the West, and on the other, further consolidating its ties with Russia, China and India.

After the re-election of Vladimir Putin as president in 2012, relations between Tehran and Moscow improved considerably as a result of international and regional changes. Despite the fact that economic cooperation has always been a Gordian knot in relations between the two countries, ties between them have expanded in many other areas.