Yandex
People pass by a sign of Yandex company, a Russian internet search engine, at its headquarters in Moscow, December 2, 2014. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev

Russia is taking its largest search engine to Iran as Yandex is going to open offices in the Islamic republic.

The declaration comes from Iranian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi who had a meeting with Russian Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov in Tehran Sunday.

This is a part of the bilateral cooperative measures between Iran and Russia. The two countries intend to extend cooperation in network security, postal services, search engines, social networks as well as research and development.

Yandex’s decision to open an office in Iran was finalized in the meeting between Vaezi and Nikiforov. The Russian search engine wants to open the office so that it could provide services for the people of Iran.

Vaezi said that his country intended to improve regional social networks as he emphasized that Russia had progressed a lot in the field. Russia’s "Telegram social network... currently has 13 to 14 million users in Iran and is active, without restrictions, parallel to the communication ministry’s policies,” Press TV quoted the Iranian minister as saying.

Vaezi also said that Iran would try to reduce monopoly in internet management as it would approach the issue in an upcoming BRICS summit in New York. “Many countries believe that the internet [management] must not be exclusive, even many European countries support this cause as well,” he said.

Russia and Iran enjoy a close relation especially after the fall of the Soviet Union. These two nations agree on a number of critical political issues in the Middle East.

Both Iran and Russia have taken a strong stance on Syria. While the West wants the end of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, Moscow and Tehran have strongly backed Assad, despite the risk of antagonizing the U.S. and its Persian Gulf allies, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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