TEHRAN, February 25. /TASS/. Moscow is grateful to Tehran for its neutral position on the situation in Ukraine rooted in the understanding of the crisis’ primary causes, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after meeting with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi.
"We touched upon the situation in Ukraine and around it. I expressed my gratitude to Iranian colleagues for their neutral position based on the understanding of the root causes of the crisis and on the understanding of the Russian position linked to it, Russia’s concerns, which are primarily connected to the tasks of reliably providing our security and protection of the rights of the people who were branded as terrorists by the regime that had come to power via a coup in 2014 and whose rights were legislatively destroyed, primarily the rights for the native language and religion," he said.
"We were also speaking about cooperation within the Caspian Five. I have already mentioned the successful execution of an economic forum here, in Iran, in January and our cooperation on Afghanistan, where we interact in various ways, including through the Moscow format, the meetings of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, and 'the four:' China, Iran, Russia, Pakistan," Lavrov noted.