Putin to meet Iran's new president

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin plans to meet the new President of Iran Hassan Rouhani on September 13 at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on Friday. “The meeting will be held on Iran’s initiative; we’re very grateful for it and will be glad to do our part to make it happen,” Ushakov said, adding, “We’ll prepare the meeting.” According to the spokesman, Russia and Iran agreed on Russia’s representative during the inaugural activities in Tehran: “To the pleasure of our Iranian colleagues, we have decided it would be State Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin.” On August 4, During a meeting with his Iranian colleague Ali Larijani, Naryshkin declared that Moscow “experts continuation of improvement of cooperation with Tehran after Hassan Rouhani’s election. At the same time, Russia’s stance on Iran’s nuclear situation remains the same. We believe that Iran has the right to develop its peaceful nuclear program given complete transparency and supervision of IAEA,” the speaker concluded.