Iranian President Has Arrived in Ekaterinburg to Meet Dmitry Medvedev

16.06.2009 — News

THE SVERDLOVSK OBLAST.

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad arrived in Ekaterinburg in the morning on 16 June 2009. He will participate in the second day of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, in which Iran has an observer status.

Mr Ahmadinejad had to postpone the visit until 16 June because the presidential elections that were held last Friday caused massive opposition protests. Despite the demonstrations in Teheran he left the country for one day to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and pay his respect to the SCO summit.

Iran strives to change its observer status in the SCO to that of a member. According to experts, Teheran considers the SCO to be a possible military and political union against NATO. However, the other member countries find these plans alerting.

The meeting between Medvedev and Ahmadinejad was scheduled for 15 June. The Russian president is having a busy day on Tuesday - the meeting of BRIC countries leaders will start after the SCO summit. In addition, Mr Medvedev is planning to meet with Brazilian and Indian leaders. Diplomatic sources told RusBusinessNews that Mr Medvedev will spare the time to meet the Iranian leader, but the meeting will be shorter than planned.