The Ministry of Foreign Affairs positively evaluates the growing interest of Muslim countries and, therefore, their mass media in Russia, Head of the Press Center, Deputy Director of the Department of Information and Press of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Alexander Mikhailovich Bikantov said at an online conference "Russia-Islamic World: Crossroads of Information Cooperation".
Media diplomacy, according to him, in modern conditions is not inferior to the diplomacy of states. In this regard, Russia and the Islamic world countries have established multifaceted cooperation. Mass media of Muslim countries are widely represented in Russia - today 59 offices from 15 Muslim countries of the world and 4 inter-Arab mass media operate in Russia.
An important incentive for the development of information interaction between Russia and the Islamic world is the commonality of approaches to solving such issues as weakening the monopoly of Western media, ensuring equal access to information, countering politicization of the media and dividing them into the so-called pro-state, which are presented a priori by the biased, and "independent" media. Countries with independent information policy, such as Russia, Iran or Syria, as Bikantov noted, are most often the main targets of discrimination in this sense.
"In this regard, Russia advocates an active dialogue with Muslim countries to combat common information threats," the diplomat stressed.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"