"We are looking for opportunities to strengthen ties between Russia and Persian-speaking countries — such as Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan — and hope that Sputnik Farsi News Service will lay a solid foundation for this interaction in the international media space", Viktoria Polikarpova, the head of the International News Desk at Sputnik, said.
The press conference will begin at noon local time (09:00 GMT), bringing together Rossiya Segodnya Director General Dmitry Kiselev; Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Mehdi Sanaei; the deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Asia Department, Maxim Baranov; and the agency's deputy editor-in-chief, Dmitry Gornostaev.
"Journalists from all over the world writing in Farsi will for the first time get prompt access to news about Russia. In a matter of seconds, the world community will be able to obtain exclusive information, which previously had to be collected bit by bit from various other sources or long be awaited due to translation issues", Polikarpova added.
Sputnik's Farsi Newswire Expected to Be in Demand in Iran
Sputnik news agency's 24/7 Farsi-language newswire, launched earlier on 7 February, is expected to be popular with people looking for an alternative angle to current events, Maxim Baranov, a senior diplomat at the Russian Foreign Ministry, has stated.
"This kind of work is in demand in Iran, all the more so because the ambassador said there was not enough truthful coverage of Russia and Iran on the global scale", Baranov said.
The diplomat, who serves as deputy director at the ministry's Second Asian Department in charge of ties with Iran, said the two countries were engaged in an active political dialogue and economic cooperation.
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