Russian President visits Iran: One arrow hits many targets

The visit comes at a "sensitive" time when the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with the P5+1 group is at risk of collapse.

During his official state visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran on November 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with his host counterpart Hassan Rouhani, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and attended the Russia-Iran-Azerbaijan trilateral summit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) during talks with Iranian President Hasan Rouhani (center) and Azerbaijani President. Photo: Sputnik

The agenda of the talks and conferences mainly focused on enhancing economic and security cooperation between the countries, aiming to promote the maintenance of stability in the region.

The Russian President’s visit to Iran comes at a time considered to be quite “sensitive”, with the nuclear deal that Iran signed with the P5+1 group of powers in 2015 facing the risk of collapse. In addition, the positive developments on the Syrian battlefield also require the two countries to continue to maintain and further strengthen cooperation.

During talks with his Iranian counterpart, Russian President Putin reaffirmed that the Iran nuclear deal is a “good agreement that helps strengthen peace and stability in the region,” and stressed that maintaining this multilateral international agreement is necessary. Directly referring to US President Donald Trump’s latest warnings about withdrawing from the agreement, President Putin stated that unilaterally canceling the agreement for any reason is unacceptable.

For his part, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Russia has an “important and influential” role in promoting and maintaining this nuclear deal.

Regarding the fight against terrorism in the Middle East, especially in Syria, the leaders of the two countries affirmed that the cooperation between the two sides is proving effective. President Rouhani confidently compared the cooperation between Moscow and Tehran as the key to resolving all tensions in the region, including the political crisis in Syria. Meanwhile, Russian President Putin also affirmed that no country can resolve the Syrian crisis alone.

“Thanks to our joint efforts and the efforts of Türkiye, the situation in the fight against terrorism on the territory of Syria is developing in a very positive way,” Putin said. “The same goes for the negotiations in Astana, the latest round of which has just ended with positive results. There are many problems in Syria and none of us can solve them alone. No party, no country can solve the Syrian crisis alone.”

On the same day, Russian President Putin also met with Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to discuss bilateral relations, as well as a range of bilateral and regional issues. Leader Ali Khamenei called on the two countries to strengthen cooperation to counter the sanctions imposed by the US on the two countries, saying that Russia and Iran could boycott US goods through a number of measures, including using their national currencies in bilateral and multilateral economic transactions, instead of the US dollar.

Regarding the trilateral summit between Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan, President Putin said that the three countries need to expand cooperation in the fields of transportation, cargo transit, as well as the North-South corridor project. According to him, Russia has no limits in cooperating with Iran in the fields of energy, trade, nuclear technology as well as rail and road transport./.

According to VOV