The Russian Federation is working closely with the South Caucasus countries and has established fruitful cooperation with Azerbaijan in various fields, the rector of the Diplomatic Academy of Russia Yevgeny Bazhanov stated, answering a question of a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza after the presentation of the two-volume book 'The Bright World of Natalia Bazhanova', which took place in the Oval Hall of the Library of Foreign Literature.
"I believe that we have good relations with Azerbaijan. They are very diverse: we have a political dialogue, the development of economic cooperation, as well as close cultural and educational ties,'' he said.
"We know that many representatives of Azerbaijan live and work successfully in our country in the field of science, including in Moscow," the diplomat added.
In addition, according to the rector of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, there has been a significant improvement in cooperation between Russia and Georgia. "We are gradually coming out of the crisis in our relations. We have simplified the visa regime and conduct trade with it. As for humanitarian ties between Russia and Georgia, they have never been interrupted,'' he stressed. "Many representatives of Georgia live in Russia and successfully work here," Bazhanov said.
Speaking about Iranian-US relations, the diplomat drew attention to the fact that some problematic matters between the two countries are still on the agenda. "In particular, their attitude towards Israel. Iran has one, but in the West, primarily the United States, there is another. Tehran and Washington also have different approaches to issues of Middle East policy. Iran has difficult relations with Saudi Arabia, which is actually an ally of the USA. We may also include Syria, Iraq and others," the rector of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
He focused on the fact that, despite all the difficulties, Iranian-US relations have improved recently. "The main problem is nuclear. It is gradually improving. But difficulties in relations between the two states will appear in future, because there are forces in the USA that still don't believe Iran and they don't want to deal with it. First of all, I mean the US Congress. Therefore, we should not expect that Iran and the USA will begin to embrace each other. But they have started changing," Yevgeny Bazhanov concluded.
