Moscow and Tehran to establish visa-free regime

Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Mehdi Sanaei said in Moscow to today that Russia and Iran will soon take a step towards establishing a visa-free regime. In his words, Russian and Iranian Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Mohammad Javad Zarif agreed to simplify the visa regime at a meeting in 2014. Tourists and businessmen will be the first to make use of the visa-free regime, RIA Novosti reports.

Orientalist Vladimir Sazhin assured that the visa-free regime will benefit all Russian-Iranian ties, including cultural, commercial and economic relations. Lifting of visas for tourists would be a great boost to the tourism industry of the countries, the expert believes.

His colleague Stanislav Pritchin believes that the visa regime has been the main obstacle to development of the countries' business relations in the last two years, considering that Iran is one of the largest economies of the world with a population of 80 million people. Russian businessmen in Iran are mostly focused on infrastructure projects. Pritchin does not see any prerequisites for a visa-free regime in the near future, it will be a gradual process.