Putin’s Visit to Iran

Policy Briefs Program

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Putin’s Visit to Iran

Russia-Iran-Turkey Trilateral Summit:

• On Tuesday, July 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Tehran to meet with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 
  • This was Putin’s first visit outside of the former Soviet Union and his first face-to-face meeting with a leader of a NATO member state since the invasion of Ukraine.
• The trilateral summit held between the three countries focused on the current state of Syria. 
  • Iran and Russia reiterated their concerns regarding a potential Turkish operation in northern Syria.  
  • Putin, in words later echoed by Raisi, conveyed the necessity to allow Syrians to determine their own country’s future with no outside influence. 
• The three countries announced that they intend to hold another trilateral summit by the end of 2022. 
• Putin also held bilateral talks with leaders from both countries, discussing non-Syria related concerns such as the war in Ukraine and the Black Sea blockade. 

Russia-Iran Bilateral Talks: 

• Ayatollah Khamenei applauded Putin’s “initiative” in standing up against NATO expansion. He stated that if Russia had not initiated the war, NATO would have caused the outbreak themselves.
  • Iran has identified the root case of the war as NATO expansion and has refrained from publicly condemning the Russian invasion. 
  • Similarly, Putin claimed that although Russia sees the loss of lives as a “great tragedy,” the West had forced Russia’s hand into reacting. 
• Iran and Russia further discussed growing their bilateral economic activities and weakening the role of the U.S. dollar in those transactions. 
  • An example is the $40bn agreement signed by Russia’s Gazprom and Iran’s NIOC to further gas exploration and export in Iran. 

Russia-Turkey Bilateral Talks: 

• Putin and Erdogan discussed implications of the Russia-Ukraine war, including the global grain crisis resulting from blockades in the Black Sea region. 
  • While Turkey has expressed support for Ukraine, even selling the country military drones, it has simultaneously contested the scope of Western sanctions on Moscow and maintained economic ties with Russia. 
• Reflecting upon his talks with Erdogan, Putin asserted that progress was made in resolving Ukraine’s grain export issue, although not all problems have been resolved.