Iranian Parliament Ratifies Iran-Russia Cooperation Bill

The Iranian lawmakers debated a report by the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission on the cooperation bill between the interior ministries of the two countries on Wednesday morning's open session, and later put it to a vote.

With 200 lawmakers present in Wednesday morning session, the bill was passed by 139 votes to nine, with two abstentions. 

The two countries’ interior ministries can after this ratification exchange the related documents.

Fighting organized crimes as well as human and drug-trafficking are among areas of cooperation between the interior ministeries of the two countries.

Iran, which shares a long border with Afghanistan which accounts for 90 percent of world opium production, and Russia, which has an estimated 2.5 million heroin addicts, have strong reason to join hands to combat drug trafficking.

Much of the heroin enters the territory of the former Soviet Union through Afghanistan's northern borders with Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. It then travels westwards across Kazakhstan, before entering the central and Ural regions of Russia, where there are large numbers of addicts.

In January 2013, Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev was the first Russian interior minister to travel to Iran since 1979. Both countries agreed on a security pact which included, among other issues, sharing intelligence information on international issues.