In an interview with Tehran based political analyst Payman Yazdani, correspondent of Moscow based EADaily discussed a range of issues including Iran-EU relations, the US influence on Iran-EU relations and ongoing developments in the Middle East.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Last year during your interview with an Italian political analyst, in which he opinionated that: “a weak EU cannot be a strong international player.” How do the Iranian political elites perceive EU? 

EU politically, economically and militarily is too dependent and subservient to the US to challenge the White House when it comes to Iran.  Only in the field of economy the EU as a successful model of regionalism was gradually turning into a major rival to the US, but Washington has decided to contain and weaken the EU by supporting the UK’s exit from the union, supporting rightist groups in Europe, creating tensions in the Europe neighboring regions like Middle East, Libya and threatening EU energy security by creating tensions in Persian Gulf and east Europe.
The leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly pointed out that Asian countries should expand cooperation. In your opinion, has there been any progress in this direction? 

Recent good economic and trade cooperation between Iran and Central Asian countries, between Iran and Russia, China and Russia, Iran and India and Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq,  Iran and Turkey all are examples of good cooperation between the Asian countries despite all US efforts to avoid.
In your opinion, could the situation with Huawei be a forerunner to wider pressure on China from the West? And what is the view or perhaps position of Iran in this situation? 

As I have written in my recent article. China is a major economic rival for the US and is threatening and challenging the US hegemony. Washington is very seriously working on containing Beijing and decreasing its global influence by different ways such as threatening China’s energy security by creating tensions in Persian Gulf which 48 percent of China’s oil import as driving engine of the country’s economy passes through the Persian Gulf, by creating instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan and trying to spread the instability to central Asia to avoid success of China’s ‘one road-one belt’ project and also by creating tensions in China Sea. The US is resorting to any tool to contain China so Huawei case is also a good excuse and case to this end.
It is known that at present time Turkey has developed strong economic relations with the Islamic Republic. However, it is known that in a number of regional conflicts, Ankara and Tehran hold opposite viewpoints In addition to this, Turkey is a member state of NATO. Is there a possibility that such a situation between countries may move in the field of direct confrontation? 

Despite differences between Tehran and Ankara on some issues the good relations between two countries continue because of some reasons: 1- economic interdependency plays an important role because Turkey needs Iran’s energy and Iran needs Turkey to reach EU market 2-developments in the region driven by the US and its allies showed both Tehran and Ankara that they need to cooperate with each other to tackle common threats.
We see our countries cooperating quite successfully in Syria. In your opinion, how great is the potential for the growth of similar relations in a number of other countries with an ongoing crisis (for example, Afghanistan, Yemen, and potentially future conflicts in the Balkans)?

In long term the US in cooperation with Saudi Arabia as sponsor of extremism and terrorism intend to spread religious extremists to central Asia and Caucasus to contain Russia too, therefore any cooperation between Iran and Russia would be to the benefit of both countries and even the region.

Interview by Damir Nazarov