Senior IRIB official: Iran, Russia media should battle US-led unilateralism

“Besides their commonalities in [multiple] cultural, economic, and social grounds, the two countries’ media are faced with common challenges [too],” said Dr. Peyman Jebelli, the chief of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB)’s World Service.

The senior IRIB official was addressing a meeting of the countries’ Joint Media Cooperation Committee in Moscow on Sunday, IRNA reported. He had arrived in the Russian capital earlier on Sunday as part of a delegation headed by Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Mohammad Khodadi.

Jebelli described “confrontation with the unilateralism, which has come about in the West, especially under the direction of the US” as one of the common challenges.

He said the US-led campaign was “trying to sacrifice the international laws and standards for its own selfish demands.”

The official said the US would unquestionably use media as a means of sustaining its unilateral policies on the international stage.

“As two countries, which face a same problem, we are inclined to increase our media cooperation to battle the unilateralism,” he concluded.

The meeting featured agreement between the attendees on enhancing the already expansive collaboration existing between the countries’ media outlets.

Commenting in early April during a meeting with senior directors of the Russia Today network, Jebelli had likewise called Iranian-Russian media cooperation an “effective step” towards ending the Western media dominion.

Iran-Russia media cooperation can dim Western dominion: IRIB officialPeyman Jebelli, the CEO of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRIB)’s World Service, says cooperation between Iranian and Russian media is an “effective step” toward ending Western media dominion.

The meeting was also joined by Volin Alexey Konstantinovich, Russia’s deputy digital development, communication, and mass communications minister, who said the countries were the main victims of “fake news,” which was being disseminated against them in bad faith.

He singled out joint media production as an important area of Russo-Iranian collaboration, saying Russia’s Zvezda (The Star) TV network, which is run by the Russian Ministry of Defense, “is prepared to cooperate with the Iranian media in the areas concerning the military, armaments, and armed forces.” The Iranian delegation visited Zvezda’s headquarters as part of their schedule.

According to Konstantinovich, the meeting also encompassed an agreement over the countries’ approach towards Internet. Tehran and Moscow, he noted, commonly believe that it is their respective national laws and regulations that should govern the use of cyberspace within each country’s sovereign borders.