TEHRAN - The Mehr News Agency (MNA) officially launched a Russian-language news service on Tuesday, bringing the agency’s foreign language services to seven.

Held at the central office of the agency, the opening ceremony was attended by a number of Iranian officials, foreign ambassadors, chargé d'affaires, cultural attaches, and foreign news agencies’ bureau chiefs in Tehran.
Foreign Minister spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization (IIDO) chief Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Mehdi Khamushi, former MNA director Parviz Emaeili, Russian Ambassador to Tehran Alexander Sadovnikov, Belarusian Ambassador Victor Rybak, Armenian Ambassador Grigor Arakelian, and Khabar newspaper director Hossein Entezami were among the participants at the inauguration ceremony.
Russian Embassy’s third secretary Sergey Sushkov, Ukrainian cultural attaché Vitaliy Zaianchkovsky, Kyodo news agency’s bureau chief in Tehran Chitose Nakagawa, Itar-Tass news agency’s bureau chief in Tehran Kaziiv Konstantin also attended the event.
-- Launch of MNA Russian-language news service significant
MNA director Reza Moqaddasi described the launch of Russian-language news service as a “significant” step, adding the measure is intended to inform the Russians of authentic news.
In addition, Hojjatoleslam Khamushi said that knowledge is power and the spread of information makes an important part of politics.
He added media outlets should avoid distorting the news and must reflect the truth about the events around the world.
Khamushi also expressed his upbeat over the launch of Russian-language news service of the MNA, hoping that other languages including Chinese and Spanish to be added to the list.
Established in 2002, MNA is a semi-official news agency, which currently disseminates its news in 6 languages: Persian, English, Arabic, German, Turkish, and Urdu.
The new wire service will provide Russian-speaking readers around the clock coverage of Iran and the world. The Russian language service will deliver the top news in politics, business, society, sports and the latest breakthroughs in health, science, and technology.
Since its establishment the Mehr News Agency has paid great attention to the international cooperation in line with boosting relations between nations and governments.
It has so far inked cooperation agreements with 14 reliable news agencies around the globe, such as the Japanese Kyodo News Agency, the Chinese Xinhua News Agency, the Press Trust of India (PTI), the Korea’s YONHAP, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA), the Turkish Cihan News Agency, the Malaysia’s BERNAMA, the Indonesia’s ANTARA, the Azerbaijan’s Trend News Agency, the Mongolia’s MONTSAME, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), and the Georgian Pirweli News Agency, as well as the Afghan Voice Agency (AVA)