ISLAMIC FACTOR OF THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION OF 1978-1979 AS AN INSTRUMENT OF RUSSIAN-IRANIAN RAPPROCHEMENT AND FORMATION OF A NEW GEOPOLITICAL REALITY IN CENTRAL ASIA
The Islamic revolution of 1978-1979 in Iran led by AyatollahKhomeini and the establishment of the teocratic rule in Iran in the formof the Islamic Republic radically changed Russian-Iranian relations. A newstage in relations between Russia and Iran came with the emergence ofdemocratic Russia on the border of the South Caucasus. For the first time in the history of relations between Russia and Iran, the Islamic factor startedto play an important role in assessing the moral and political choice of formsand methods of solving complex inter-ethnic and religious problems in the Central Asian region.