On March 27, 2013, Lobachevsky Nizhny Novgorod State University (UNN) hosted the international scientific conference "Foreign Regional Studies: Problems of Theory and Practice", which was attended by teachers, postgraduates, students of this educational institution, as well as employees of scientific and educational centers of Russia and Iran, including the Institute of Regional Studies. Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, MGIMO(U) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Ivanovo State University. The event was organized by the Department of Foreign Regional Studies of UNN. Being a new structure of this educational institution, it not only trains students of regional studies, but also engages in research activities in the field of regional aspects of international relations, as well as in-depth study of history, culture, religion, ethno-confessional processes and activities of non-governmental organizations in Europe, the Middle and Far East and North America.

In recent years, within the framework of special programs, the department pays special attention to the research of individual countries and regions of Asia and Africa. A section of the conference was devoted to the analysis of the problems of these countries. A. A. Kornilov (UNN) presented the report "Complex thinking and its application in the study of foreign regions". Noting that since the current era in the system of international relations is characterized by turbulence and the world is moving from unipolarity to polycentricity, it is necessary to change the theoretical pillars of the system of international relations. The state of uncertainty, unpredictability, and uneven development of individual regions, as well as a number of sectors of international actors ' activities, has brought to life a variety of expert and analytical products. Specialists of various profiles, from pro-government centers to so-called independent institutes of foreign policy analysis and planning, seek to find and identify the most important trends in the development of international and regional relations.-

to identify the strategic link and the basic element of change that will help to develop optimal policy options for the country.

According to the author, one of the options may be the approach associated with"complex thinking". The concept of "complex", of course, means the difficulty of perceiving regional relations that have become fragile and fragile. However, the main meaning of "complex thinking" is the need to combine different elements. "Complex thinking" proceeds from the fact that it is not possible to reason, analyze, and talk about the permanent boundaries of regional development, at least in the next 10-15 years. "Complex thinking" is associated with the phenomenon of non-linearity in regional assessments and policies. As an example, the speaker mentioned interregional migration, which simultaneously contains security threats and an important resource for development. "Complex thinking" warns experts that what yesterday was constant and seemed unshakable, today is gaining mobility and elasticity.

In conclusion, A. A. Kornilov noted that society also needs politicians, diplomats, and military personnel with flexible thinking, capable of working in conditions of constant change. Decision makers and experts with adaptive thinking are in demand, and such thinking comes with experience and knowledge of the ever-changing reality. In turn, the knowledge of reality encourages constant learning, the need to learn always.

E. V. Dunaeva (Institute of Political Science of the Russian Academy of Sciences) in her report "Peculiarities of political systems in the East (on the example of the Islamic Republic of Iran)" noted that in the last decade, the eastern direction has been actively developing in Russian political science. The specifics of political processes in the countries of the East are determined by specific historical development, civilizational features and the specifics of political culture. She stressed that over the past century, the evolution of political systems has followed the path of mastering the norms and institutions of political democracy, i.e., absorbing Western values. However, the process of modernizing the political system is also going through a return to traditional values. At present, the political systems of modern Eastern societies are characterized by a bizarre interweaving of elements and institutions characteristic of Western and Eastern societies. Moreover, this symbiosis is manifested in the structure of the highest authorities, in the mechanism of their functioning, and in the activities of political parties and public organizations.

The Iranian model of the political system can be considered as an example of the interweaving of traditional institutions and borrowing from the practice of the Western world. In the system of its political structure, democratic electoral institutions and the principle of separation of powers coexist with elements of Islamic theocracy. E. V. Dunayeva believes that the modern Iranian regime combines the ideas of Islamism and democracy and demonstrates the ability to evolve.

A. I. Lychagin (UNN) made a report "The Chinese factor in the context of global economic globalization". He stressed that China maintains itself as a mono-ethnic state, and in recent years there has been a shift in emphasis from communist ideas to nationalist ones within the country. According to the speaker, Chinese nationalism can become an ideological weapon and help strengthen China's political influence in the world. China's ongoing economic reforms and the adoption of a new law on emigration, which simplifies the procedure for leaving the country, can redirect migration flows from the interior of China abroad. In the near future, A. I. Lychagin believes that the main areas of migration of Chinese people will be those regions where Chinese business occupies a strong position. Previously, Chinese diasporas abroad appeared spontaneously, but now we are actually talking about the program of the Chinese leadership to artificially create and maintain diasporas around the world. Given the peculiarities of the Chinese mentality (leaving the country, the Chinese retains strong ties with it), Beijing will turn every percentage of economic growth into a percentage of its political influence. Thus, the strengthening of China's economic presence in the world is becoming an important part of the strategy of its transformation into a leading world power.

The conference continued in three sections: "International political processes in the post-Soviet space", "Regional Policy of Great Powers" and "International Relations in the Middle East". We will focus on the analysis of the issues of the last panel and the main conclusions of the speakers.

I. V. Ryzhov's report (UNN) "US Policy towards Regional States" opened the work of the section "International Relations in the Near and Middle East region".

leaders of the Middle East". The current policy of the United States is aimed at controlling any regional centers of power. Moreover, such a policy does not meet with any effective resistance from those against whom it is directed. The goal of this US strategy is to further strengthen Washington's position in the region. The main role in implementing this strategy is assigned to the so - called regional leaders. I. V. Ryzhov believes that the recent events that have shaken the Arab world have not yet seriously affected the status of the United States in the region. In the medium term, Washington will remain the most significant player capable of exerting pressure on most countries in the Middle East.

Topics related to US policy in this region are also reflected in the report of I. E. Fedorova (Institute of International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences) "The Islamic Republic of Iran in the system of International Relations". The speaker highlighted the main vectors of development of relations between Iran and the leading regional and global powers and outlined a paradigm for the development of the international situation in this turbulent region. She covered in detail the clash of interests between Tehran and Washington regarding Iran's nuclear program and the position of various representatives of the American establishment on this issue. According to the speaker, Israel's attitude towards the ruling regime of Iran is the most aggressive. Domestic political and economic problems, which are the focus of the US and Israeli leadership's attention, push into the background the military option of forcing Iran to abandon the development of methods for enriching uranium to a high level. At the same time, the weakening of Iran's influence in the region due to the civil war in Syria and the consequences of the sanctions regime imposed against Iran, pushes Tehran to negotiate with the United States. The position of the Russian Federation in shaping the vector of relations with Iran is based on the fact that cooperation with Iran is the most important condition for ensuring the country's security, maintaining stability in Central Asia and Transcaucasia, and a factor that restrains tension in the Middle East.

The topic related to Russia's interests in preserving and strengthening stability in the South Caucasus and Central Asia region was also touched upon in the report "Iran, Transcaucasia and Central Asia: Political and Security Aspects"by L. M. Ravaidi-Fadai (IB RAS). Reviewing the development of Iran's relations with Turkey, the states of the South Caucasus and Central Asia, she noted that there are two main security risks in this region. The first one is internal. This is a "smoldering", frozen Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict, which is one of the most explosive and is associated with contradictions between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the ownership of Nagorno-Karabakh. The second risk is external. It concerns the possibility of military intervention in Iran by the United States and / or Israel. Emphasizing that Iran occupies one of the central places in this region and without its participation it is impossible to solve any problems in both the political and economic spheres, the speaker expressed the opinion that the positions of Russia and Iran on a number of regional problems are quite close and their interests largely coincide. At the same time, Iran can compete with Russia in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Therefore, Russia, when building its policy in this region, should take into account the positions of Iran and try to further coordinate with Iran activities aimed at strengthening stability in the region.

Sadeq Vahid Hosseinzadeh (Imam's University, Iran) addressed the problem of overlapping interests of Iran and Russia in his report "On the Formation of the Asian Union". The speaker sees the possibility of countering the hegemony imposed by the United States in creating an Asian Union based on Russia, China and Iran. He considers the SCO to be the prototype of such a union, whose activities demonstrate the existence of common interests and common threats for Asian states. The speaker believes that the desire to create such an association should become a priority of Russia's foreign policy. Iran, which occupies an advantageous strategic position and is one of the main producers and exporters of oil, can become a strategic ally of Russia. S. V. Hosseinzadeh expressed the opinion that it is the confrontation with the United States that should become the basis for such allied relations. The speaker presented several options for transforming the SCO into an Asian Union.

Much attention at the conference was paid to the policy of Turkey and Iran in the region.

In his report "Turkey's foreign policy ideology under the rule of the Justice and Development Party", Vladimir Avatkov(MGIMO University) of the Russian Foreign Ministry) noted that the Turkish foreign policy ideology is based on the principles of Euro-Atlanticism, good neighborliness, and strengthening economic ties with neighbors. She skillfully combines the ideas of "a bridge between Europe and Asia", pantyur-

islamism, nationalism, renewed Islam, democracy and European ideals. The main goals of the country's foreign policy activities are to transform the image of Turkey into a more independent power capable of dictating its conditions on the world stage (according to the speaker, while maintaining real subordination to the United States), and to gradually strengthen Turkey as a super-regional and subsequently world-class power. The tools for achieving this goal are integration into the EU, as well as NATO, Turkey's participation in a number of international and regional organizations, mediation, peacekeeping, solidarity actions, etc.

According to V. A. Avatkov, the propaganda of these goals is growing stronger within the country. Moreover, the current leadership of Turkey does not emphasize ways to achieve its goals. The transformation of Turkey's foreign policy ideology is observed against the background of the strengthening of the Islamic principle in domestic political life. These are attempts to discredit the military, which historically played an important role, and over the past hundred years has been a kind of shield against Islamism; to convince the population of the correctness of a new path, new ideologies and political principles; to introduce the idea that "Islam is good", it is an integral factor in all spheres of life-from home life to to prove that Ataturk has done a lot, but the time has come for changes of both a legal and political nature; to justify the strengthening of individuals and groups in business controlled and friendly to the authorities by the need to stabilize the internal economic situation; to assure the nation that borders and sovereignty do not matter today, resources and connections are important, at the expense of conduct operations in Iraq and get relatively cheap Central Asian gas.

The speaker noted that it is extremely important for Russia that Turkey's current foreign policy ideology implies expansion, in particular in the direction of the northeast: the Caucasus and Central Asia. Already in the medium term, Russia may face a completely new ideology of a moderate Islamic power with a pyramidal economy, a strong army and a passionate ethnic group.

O. G. Kuznetsova's report (MGIMO University)was devoted to the analysis of the foreign policy aspect of Turkish policy in the context of the events of the "Arab Spring". Russian Foreign Ministry) "Transformation of Turkey's foreign policy in the Middle East at a new stage of the Arab Spring". At various stages of the Arab Spring, Turkey changed the direction of its regional foreign policy several times. Guided by significant ambitions and taking the position of a player who does not have the right to remain only an observer, Turkey has had a certain influence on the development of events in neighboring Middle Eastern states. To varying degrees, Ankara's influence can be traced in Syria, Egypt and Libya. In each of these countries, the events of the "Arab Spring" led to special results. Currently, the Republic of Turkey, as a significant regional political player, is forced not only to take into account the development and consequences of the" Arab Spring", but also to deal with the internal problems created by the situation in the region.

A number of other reports have also analyzed the events and consequences of the Arab Spring. Farhad Rumi (Shaheed Chamran University, Iran), in his report "Iran and the development of Democracy in the Middle East", assessed the opportunities for democratization that opened up for this region during the "Arab Spring". He noted that revolutions in a number of countries swept away pro-American regimes and brought to power popular governments that chose the democratic path. This development has opened up more opportunities for strengthening the influence of Iran, which is interested in strengthening democratic processes in the Middle East. The speaker expressed the opinion that under the current circumstances, Iran should openly support the democratic aspirations of the peoples of the region. By pursuing such a line, the Shiite authorities will be able to change the balance of power in the region in their favor, ensure their security and expand the sphere of their interests.

The report of A. S. Matveev (UNN) was also devoted to the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He analyzed the influence of internal factors on the formation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's foreign policy. In addition to the spiritual leader of the country, the president and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a number of structures that directly or indirectly influence this process are involved in the development of the foreign policy line in Iran. Nevertheless, the coming to power of M. Ahmadinejad brought new moments to the country's foreign policy. Ahmadinejad called on the international community to recognize and protect the rights of all States on an equal basis, and to ensure the participation of all States in important international processes. Speaker, analyzing the foreign policy activities of the Ahmadi Government-

Nejada concluded that the diplomacy of this period is characterized by a periodic departure from the doctrinal attitudes of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the field of foreign policy, which is associated with tactical considerations and often personal pragmatic ideas of the president about ways to achieve Tehran's international goals. According to L. S. Matveev, M. Ahmadinejad's behavior in the foreign arena reflects new moments in the internal political life of Iran, the ongoing change of political elites, the desire to strengthen the secular principle and republican authorities in the public administration system. It is the influence of internal factors that explains the ambivalence of Iran's policy, which has been manifested in recent years both in Iran's behavior in negotiations on the nuclear program and in the assessment of events in the Middle East and North Africa.

The conference participants paid much attention to the situation in Lebanon and Syria, as well as the policies of the Hezbollah and Hamas movements. Thus, N. A. Berenkova (INGU) in her report "A. Leiphart's concept of consociative democracy in the politics of the Lebanese AMAL and Hezbollah parties" emphasized that now, at the tactical level, Hezbollah and its allies have chosen the path of consociative democracy, but in the long term, the line remains to abolish this system, which gives an advantage to individual communities. In her opinion, despite the demand to reconsider the confessional distribution of power, maintaining the status quo at the moment allows Hezbollah and its allies to monopolize power in the Shiite community itself. Developments in Syria and Hezbollah's ability to reconcile its regional agenda with its domestic ambitions will play a major role in Lebanese politics.

The transformation of the political position of the radical organization Hamas in the context of the "Arab Spring" was considered in his report by A. A. Ermakov (UNN). He analyzed the main points of view on what vector of development Hamas will choose for itself in connection with the ongoing changes in the Middle East and North Africa region and the aggravation of the situation around its allies Syria and Iran: Hamas maneuvering without breaking with Tehran; strengthening its position in the Arab world; Hamas ' withdrawal from Syria in the future, Iranian and Qatari orbits of influence, while maintaining an alliance with Turkey and Egypt represented by the Muslim Brotherhood. In conclusion, the speaker noted that Tehran attaches almost paramount importance to the continuation of the alliance with Hamas, and therefore it is unlikely that the Palestinian radicals will leave the Iranian orbit of influence in the near future.

In the report "The Syrian crisis: internal prerequisites of the conflict and its further development" T. S. Kurbanova (UNN) described in detail the events that took place over the past two years in Syria, which she observed as a student of the University in Damascus. Despite the internal problems, the main factor destabilizing the situation in the country was the external aspect. In order to achieve their goals, a number of Western countries have recently clearly shown a tendency to overthrow the current government in Syria. Noting that the transformation of political elites in Syria is proceeding at an extremely slow pace, the speaker drew attention to the fact that against the background of this stagnation, the internal conflict continued to grow, fueled by representatives of Islamic radical movements and fundamentalist terrorists who came to fight from Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. The contradictions between radical revolutionary elements such as Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Fatah and Al-Tawhid and the Syrian opposition from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) units have outlined one of the main lines of division of the forces currently fighting against the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Foreign economic issues are reflected in the report of A. V. Suleymanov (Nizhny Novgorod University) "Foreign Economic relations of Russia, Turkey and Iran: a comparative analysis". Describing in detail the development of economic relations between Russia and Turkey, Turkey and Iran, and Russia and Iran, he noted that Iran is a major trading partner of Russia in the Middle East. Since 2004, the trade turnover between Russia and Iran has steadily exceeded $ 2 billion, with Russian exports to Iran accounting for more than 90% of trade. Statistics show that Russia's trade turnover with Turkey in recent years has been about 5-14 times higher than that with Iran. This is due both to the peculiarities of the commodity and industry structure of trade turnover (export of hydrocarbons from Russia to Turkey), and because of the sanctions regime imposed against Iran. Concluding that Turkey is currently a more important economic partner for Russia than Iran, A.V. Suleymanov said that Russia's foreign economic relations with Iran are presented today

quite rich and intense. Investment and energy cooperation has become very active. Top officials of the two countries have repeatedly stated the need to increase trade turnover to $ 10 billion.

These statements of the author caused bewilderment of the audience. During the heated discussion, opinions were expressed that, despite the development of close political ties between Russia and Iran, their economic cooperation continues to remain at a low level, and in the last three years there has been a decrease in trade turnover between them. The representative of Iran noted that the trade turnover between Turkey and Russia exceeds the same indicator in relations between Russia and Iran by dozens of times. The results of Turkish-Iranian economic cooperation are also far from desirable, since political factors act as its constraints.

The work of the section ended with a report by E. B. Boev (Ped. University of Nizhny Novgorod) "Historical features of the perception of the monarchy in Iranian society in the period before the Islamic Revolution of 1979". Although the topic of the report was different from the issues raised at the conference, it nevertheless aroused considerable interest among representatives of Iran and Iranists present at the meeting. Despite its traditional inclusion in the Islamic civilizational community, Iran has always demonstrated certain features of culture, social and political development, which is due to the uniqueness and specificity of the history of this state and the ethnic groups inhabiting this territory. The analysis of ideological, religious and political views related to the attitude to monarchical power in traditional Iranian society is still relevant today, although in 1979 the form of the state structure officially changed. According to E. B. Boev, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who appealed to ancient Iranian values and maneuvered between the pre-Islamic past and the Islamic present, who stood on the position of forced modernization, failed to properly implement the most important function of the" righteous monarch " of protecting the interests of the Islamic community. This function is automatically transferred to the highest Shiite clergy, who first carried out the desacralization of the Shah's power in the public consciousness, and then eliminated the monarchical rule in Iran during the 1978-1979 Islamic Revolution.

At the final meeting, it was noted that the traditional conference of the Department of Foreign Regional Studies was successful. The number of participants is increasing from year to year, the interest of specialists in this conference is growing, and its thematic scope is expanding. It was noted that the materials of this conference will be published in a special edition of the University of Nizhny Novgorod.

Permanent link to this publication: