Zhirinovsky Calls For Expansion of Tehran-Moscow Security Cooperation
Upon his arrival in Moscow after a two-day visit to Tehran, Zhirinovsky, vice-speaker of the Russian State Duma, told reporters that Iran is ready for any kind of cooperation with Russia.
Referring to an upcoming two-day state visit to Moscow of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, scheduled for March 19, saying, "Russia should regain the opportunities it has lost over the past years for following the West." Khatami and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are likely to reach an interim agreement on how to divide the oil-rich Caspian Sea among the five littoral states.
Zhirinovsky, leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party said that the agreements signed last December Between Iranian and Russian defense ministers in Tehran on broad military cooperation should be put into effect.
He said, "Only with the cooperation of Iran, can Russia defend its economic interests in the southern region."
Iran and Russia declared last December that a 1995 Russia-U.S. deal that prevented Moscow from selling conventional arms to Iran was effectively dead.
"It was agreed that a new phase of military and technical cooperation would begin between the two sides," visiting Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev told journalists at a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart Ali Shamkhani.
Sergeyev made a three-day state visit to Tehran last week, the first by a Russian defense minister since the triumph in 1979 of the Islamic Revolution. A high-ranking military delegation was with him.
The United States immediately reacted to Sergeyev's visit by saying it had serious concerns on Russia's plan to sell arms to Iran as they would pose a threat to its interests in the Middle East.
Zhirinovsky also said that Iran and Russia should make more efforts to define a legal status for the Caspian Sea, estimated to contain the world's third largest reserves of oil and gas after the Persian Gulf and Siberia.
Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea. The Islamic Republic has repeatedly indicated that it will agree to an equitable sharing of the oil-rich Caspian Sea which would give it a 20 percent share.
(IRNA)