TASS- Speaker of Iran�s parliament, Ali Larijani, who has arrived in Moscow to attend an international conference, said on Sunday he plans to discuss with Russian lawmakers possibilities for expanding Russian investments in Iran.

"We will hold talks to support cooperation between Russia and Iran and, within the framework of parliamentary mechanisms, we will draft a formula that would ensure broader presence of major companies in investing into Iran," he said at a meeting with Sergei Neverov, a deputy speaker of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house, who welcomed him at the airport.

Larijani will take part in the international conference titled Lawmakers Against Drugs that will be held at the Russian State Duma on December 4.
Commenting on the forthcoming forum, the Iranian parliament speaker noted that the presence of foreign states in Afghanistan under a pretext of countering terrorism and drugs has resulted in a dramatic increase of drug exports from that country. "So, Iran, Russia and other stets of this region have every right to be sensitive about this problem," he stressed.

"I think that the leading Western states concerned must we aware that this crisis (drug proliferation - TASS) will reach them as well. I wouldn�t say that the efforts [of the countries of the region] are futile but they are not limitless," Larijani warned.

Neverov, in turn, said it is important for Russian lawmakers to learn more about the experiences of other nations in dealing with the drug threat. "And in this context, Iran is one of the leading nations doing much to counter drug trafficking," he said, adding that he hopes Larijani�s meeting with Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin "will help create additional instruments to counter drug proliferation and to rehabilitate drug addicts."

The international conference Parliamentarians Against Drugs will be attended by delegates from the parliaments of 43 world nations, including parliament speakers from Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Ecuador, senior lawmakers from Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Hungary, Guinea, Kazakhstan, Korea, Mexico, Serbia, Slovenia, Tajikistan and the Philippines.

The plenary session on December 4 will be addressed by State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, United Nations Under Secretary General and Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Yuri Fedotov, Secretary General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Rashid Alimov, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.