Welcome to today's discussion. My name is Glenn Dyson. With me is the excellent Alexander Mercuris.

We're also joined today from Iran by Professor Sayyad Mohamed Marandi. Welcome.

Thank you very much for having me.

So, well, I guess Iran often falls in this category of countries, of which many people

seem to have a very strong opinion about, even though many tend to know very little about that

country and its position. So I would say often we see the media lean on their emotional

slogans and catchphrases, which makes it very difficult to get an informed

view on Russia's, sorry, not Russia's, Iran's positions and perspectives on key issues,

which is why, again, we have the privilege to speak with Professor Marandi today.

And, yeah, as a prominent professor in Iran and also an advisor to the Iranian nuclear negotiations team in Vienna,

I think, yeah, he would be in an excellent position to make us all a bit wiser.

So the topics we really wanted to address today is everything from Iran's efforts to improve relations with the Gulf states,

you know, a strategic partnership, an economic partnership with China and Russia, the tensions with the United States.

But I guess, well, my first question to you is about the economic integration of this, you know, massive Asian or Eurasian continent which

somewhat ties all of these topics together because there seems to be a desire to

decentralize the international economic system among all these countries on

this continent to reduce dependence on the Western economies of course course, this is to enhance prosperity, but also to prevent countries like the United States,

to use economic dependence as a weapon to preserve its dominant position in the international system.

And I feel like Iran often takes a key role in all of this because we see these huge initiatives

from, you know, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

We have the Eurasian Economic Union, which is signing free trade with Iran.

We have the international north-south transportation corridor.

...