Sanctions bring Iran and Russia together!
-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL
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Russia has officially joined Iran as being the key target of economic sanctions by the USA and EU over its action in Ukraine.  Both have been the victims of the economic terror attacks by the West known as sanctions but still have stood against US unilateralism and unipolarity and, in recent times, have accelerated their trade links. 
Iran began exporting automobiles to Russia for the first time in five years on June 29, after meeting upgraded emission standards.  The country's largest auto manufacturer Iran-Khodro's factory in Tehran said it plans to export 10,000 cars to Russia by 2015. The company workers at loaded the first shipment, which includes Samand and Runna sedans. Iran-Khodro exported more than 12,000 cars to Russia from 2007 to 2009, but the shipments stopped when Russia adopted stricter Euro-4 emission standards.

The resumption of automobiles export comes at a time of greater openness to trade with Iran following an interim nuclear deal reached in November that saw some international sanctions eased in return for Tehran freezing or curbing parts of its nuclear program. The exports also reflect increasing cooperation between the two countries. Russia built a nuclear power plant for Iran that went online in 2011, and Tehran and Moscow are in discussions to build more.

Iran also hopes to reach a final nuclear deal with Russia and other world powers by next month. Iran has said that it expects to sign a deal with Russia in late August on the building of two new 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors in the Islamic Republic, potentially boosting its case that it is refining uranium for civilian energy, not atom bombs.

Before the US sanctions, Iran produced more than 1 million cars per year. Russia is a big market for Iranian cars, with a total of 2.78 million new passenger cars and light and commercial vehicles sold in 2013.

Iran's manufacturing sector has been crippled by international sanctions imposed over its nuclear program. Western nations have long suspected Iran of covertly seeking a nuclear weapons capability alongside its civilian program. Longstanding Western fears that the Bushehr project could yield spent fuel of use in nuclear weapons — something it denies it is seeking to do — receded after Iran promised to send the material back to Russia.

Tehran denies the allegations and insists its nuclear activities are only aimed at power generation and medical treatments. Iran has long argued that it needs to enrich uranium, which can have both civilian and military uses, to fuel a planned network of atomic power stations and that any contract on new reactors with Russia may help it back up its case. But Russia — which built Iran's so far only nuclear reactor, at Bushehr on the country's Gulf coast — is providing the enriched fuel for that plant and may want to do that also for any future facilities it will build in Iran.

Russia is one of six world powers negotiating with Iran on a long-term agreement to end a decade-old dispute over Tehran's nuclear program, which the country says is peaceful but the West fears may be aimed at developing a nuclear arms capability.

The long period set aside for the negotiations between Iran and the USA, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany may be an indication both of how difficult it will be to overcome the differences between Tehran and the six — and the parties' determination to get a deal. The stakes are high in the talks resuming on July 2, as the powers seek a negotiated solution to a more-than-decade-long standoff with Iran that has raised fears of a new Middle East war and a regional nuclear arms race.

The panel's latest findings were made public earlier this month. In May, when the experts noted that Tehran's illicit procurement appeared to have slowed during its negotiations with the six powers, though Iranians continued to attempt to bypass sanctions. They also accused Iran of pursuing its ballistic missile program in violation of UN sanctions imposed on Tehran for refusing to suspend its uranium enrichment program. Iran says enrichment is part of a peaceful nuclear program. The panel urged countries to clarify the status of UN sanctions in the event of a deal with Iran that would see them gradually eased in exchange for curbs on Iranian atomic activities. It said some states were confused about the status of sanctions after a preliminary deal agreed last year.

The Kremlin stands by Iran. Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin has said the next round of talks between Iran and six world powers on Tehran's nuclear program will be a two-week marathon session, while warning a panel of UN sanctions experts not to sabotage the final phase of the delicate negotiations. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the UN's Security Council that negotiations are scheduled to run from July 2 to July 15 in Vienna. Speaking about the previous round of negotiations, June 16 to 20, Churkin said it was very useful and confirmed the overall readiness to continue cooperating in a constructive vein. He predicted that their readiness for cooperation would continue in the talks beginning next week. 

Churkin sharply criticized the UN Panel of Experts on Iran, which monitors compliance with the Security Council's sanctions regime, saying any information not backed up by concrete facts could have a negative impact on the conduct of negotiations of the group of six and Iran. Churkin was dismissive of that and other recommendations. "This is an issue that is outside their mandate. The experts should not interfere in this extremely sensitive process. And in particular it is unacceptable to pre-judge its outcome." Churkin reiterated Russia's commitment to a positive outcome of the nuclear talks.

The IRNA news agency reported that Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's atomic energy organization, will go to Moscow to finalize the reactor contract and construction may start early next year. There was no immediate comment from Russia. IRNA also reported that senior Iranian and Russian nuclear energy officials, including the deputy chief executive of state-owned Rosatom, Nikolai Spassky, met in Tehran this week to discuss commercial and technical details of the planned reactors.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran's atomic energy organization, said the reactors would be built next to the first unit of the Bushehr nuclear power plant and the construction of the reactors could start by the end of the Iranian year which runs until March 2015.

World powers including the United States, France, Germany, Britain and China want Iran to significantly scale back its enrichment of uranium to deny it any capability to quickly make bomb-grade fuels. Iran denies any such aims.

Talks between Iran and the world powers will resume on July 2 in Vienna, with the sides aiming to clinch a deal ending the nuclear stand-off by a self-imposed July 20 deadline. Russia's UN envoy has said the next round of talks between Iran and six world powers on Tehran's nuclear program will be a two-week marathon session, while warning a panel of UN sanctions experts not to sabotage the final phase of the delicate negotiations. While they refuse to debate total disarmament, Iran, the U.S., France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia are working to reach a long-term accord on ending the decade-old dispute over Tehran's atomic activities by the deadline.

Ever since the fall of Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq,  Russia has been  pushing for greater military and other economic  ties with Iran, further aggravating the  US-Iran  tensions. . 

USA and NATO would attack Iran if the global opinion is against nukes, but unfortunately big nations promote the idea of terrorization of humanity by more and more high precision weapons and nuke piles. Many other countries also manufacture nukes under the garb of electricity generation tactics.  

The long period set aside for the negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany may be an indication both of how difficult it will be to overcome the differences between Tehran and the six — and the parties' determination to get a deal.

The stakes are high in the talks resuming on July 2, as the powers seek a negotiated solution to a more-than-decade-long standoff with Iran that has raised fears of a new Middle East war and a regional nuclear arms race.

World powers should serious consider the denuclearization and disarmament to end nuke production and consequent arms races across the globe. 
Russia-Iran ties are expected to grow  multidimensionally.