Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian arrived in Moscow on Friday to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and sign a strategic partnership treaty linking closer defense cooperation, in a move that is likely to alarm the West.
On his first visit to the Kremlin since winning the presidency last July, Pezeshkian will hold talks with Putin, focusing on bilateral relations and international issues before signing the treaty.
Ahead of the talks, the Kremlin praised its close ties with Tehran.
“Iran is an important partner for us with which we are developing multidimensional cooperation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Since the start of the Ukraine war Moscow has forged closer ties with other countries hostile to the US, such as Iran and North Korea, and already has strategic agreements with Pyongyang and close ally Belarus, as well as a strategic partnership with China. Have compromised.
The 20-year Russia-Iran deal is not expected to include the mutual defense clause sealed with Minsk and Pyongyang, but is still likely to worry the West which sees both countries as having a malign influence on the world stage. Is.
Moscow and Tehran say their increasingly close ties are not directed at other countries.
Russia has made extensive use of Iranian drones during the war in Ukraine and the United States in September accused Tehran of giving Russia close-range ballistic missiles for use against Ukraine. Tehran denies supplying drones or missiles.
The Kremlin has refused to confirm that it has received Iranian missiles, but has acknowledged that its cooperation with Iran covers “the most sensitive areas”.
Pezeshkian’s visit to Moscow comes as Iranian influence across the Middle East recedes after Islamic rebels seized power in Syria, ousted ally Bashar al-Assad and Israel defeated Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza. Used to be.
Israel has also caused serious damage to Tehran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Russia also finds itself on the backfoot in Syria, where it maintains two major military facilities vital to its geopolitical and military influence in the Middle East and Africa, but their fate under Syria’s new rulers is now uncertain.
Putin met with Pezeshkyan on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan in October and at a cultural forum in Turkmenistan the same month.
Pezeshkian, who is in talks with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin ahead of meeting Putin, has been accompanied by his oil minister to Moscow, and is likely to discuss Western sanctions on the region and how to circumvent them. Is.
