Tehran’s head of state, Masoud Pezeshkian, used a gas producers’ summit in Moscow to stand shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin. The two leaders met at the Kremlin on Tuesday, while the eighth GECF summit of gas-producing nations was under way, first privately and then with large delegations that on the Russian side included Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the heads of Rosatom and Gazprom.
The Russian leader led with economics. Bilateral trade, he said, was up 10.4 percent in January through August compared with a year earlier, Moscow was honouring every commitment on joint projects and Russian builders were still at work on Iran’s Bushehr atomic plant. He also pointed to roughly 10,000 Iranian students now enrolled at Russian universities, called the regional situation a cause for concern and said he hoped it would improve.
Pezeshkian’s message was more political. He condemned what he called unilateral US actions in the Middle East, argued for a multipolar world and said the countries of the region could settle their own problems without leaning on Washington. He urged closer contacts among states under sanctions, and announced one tangible step: Tehran has approved an office in Iran for Russia’s state broadcaster, an idea Lavrov had proposed.
Before the Kremlin talks, Pezeshkian had also sat down with Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, for a conversation on gas and power. Doha is one of the main go-betweens with the United States, but on Tuesday it also publicly demanded that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz again and stop threatening Gulf states.
The Moscow meeting thus showed Iran seeking a dependable partner while its neighbours press it to change course and try to head off another war.
