Putin says growing ties with ‘very close’ ally Iran is top priority

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said growing ties with Iran were a “priority” as he met the country’s president to discuss Middle East tensions in a surprise summit.

The two leaders talked up their “very close” relations in their first meeting, which came as Iran is facing a major threat of retaliation from Israel.

The meeting in Ashgabat, the capital of the secretive state of Turkmenistan, between the two leaders of the West’s most dangerous enemies appeared friendly.

Cameras showed Putin and Pezeshkian shaking hands and smiling as they listened to each other through interpreters.

“Relations with Iran are a priority for us, they are developing very successfully. Our views of events in the world are often very close,” said Putin.

The alliance between Russia and Iran has grown stronger since the start of the war with Iran sending drones and missiles to Russia, in return for oil and technical know-how.

Iran is now facing its own crisis in the Middle East, prompting further questions over the transactional relationship between the two allies of the so-called “axis of evil”.

Putin had turned up to the meeting at Turkmenistan’s palatial Chamber of Commerce in his bulletproof black Russia-made limousine even though it is only legal to drive a silver or white car in Turkmenistan.

Responding to Putin, Pezeshkian, who only became Iran’s president in July, agreed that Iran and Russia’s worldviews overlap.

“Economically and culturally, our communications are being strengthened day by day and becoming more robust,” he said.

The two men are due to meet again at an economics summit in Russia on Oct 22-24.

At odds with Washington and the European Union over Russia’s war in Ukraine, something he casts as part of a wider existential struggle against an arrogant and self-interested West - Putin is keen to deepen ties with what he calls the Global East and Global South.

Putin, whose country is hosting a summit of the BRICS nations in Kazan on Oct 22-24, invited Pezeshkian to come to Russia on an official visit, a proposal the Iranian leader accepted according to Russia’s state RIA news agency.

“Economically and culturally, our communications are being strengthened day by day and becoming more robust,” Pezeshkian was cited as telling Putin by Iran’s official IRNA news agency.

“The growing trend of cooperation between Iran and Russia, considering the will of the top leaders of both countries, must be accelerated to strengthen these ties,” he said.

Pezeshkian last month committed his country to deeper ties with Russia to counter Western sanctions. The two countries say they are close to signing a strategic partnership agreement, something Pezeshkian said on Friday he hoped could be finalised at the BRICS summit in Russia later this month.

The United States regards Moscow’s growing relationship with Tehran with concern. It has accused Iran of supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in the conflict in Ukraine, something Tehran has denied.

Russia says cooperation with Iran is expanding in all areas.

“We actively work together in the international arena, and our assessments of current events in the world are often very close,” the TASS news agency cited Putin as telling Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the conference in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat.

Pezeshkian, according to IRNA, noted that Iran and Russia had significant complementary capacities and could assist each other. “Our positions in the world are much closer to each other than to others,” he was quoted as telling the Russian leader.

Putin was cited by TASS as telling Pezeshkian that economic ties between Moscow and Tehran were on the up.

In comments released by the Kremlin earlier on Friday, Putin told the conference in the Central Asian country that a new world order was being formed and that new centres of economic growth and financial and political influence were emerging.

Russia supported “the broadest possible international discussion” on the emerging multipolar world and was open to discussing it within various fora, including the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and BRICS, said Putin.