Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin signed a major cooperation agreement at the Kremlin on Friday, strengthening the alliance between the two countries over a mutual desire to challenge the West.
The treaty is the latest that Russia has signed with a country that has had conflicts with the West since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, and is gaining global standing before the inauguration of President Donald Trump's second term. It represents an effort to improve.
Iran and Russia face numerous sanctions from Western countries, with trade and finance at the forefront of the treaty signed on Friday.
The announced agreement covers military matters and specifies that if Iran or Russia are attacked, the parties to the agreement will not provide military or other assistance to the aggressor that would “encourage continued aggression.” .
However, according to Iran's ambassador to Moscow, in contrast to agreements Russia has signed with other allies, the deal with Iran does not include mutual defense clauses.
“Our country's independence, security and self-reliance are very important,” Ambassador Kazem Jalali told Iranian news agency IRNA, according to TASS. “We're not going to join any bloc.”
Speaking in the Kremlin after the meeting, Putin said the agreement with Iran creates “an additional, important and significant basis for building mutual relations based on trust.”
“We have been coordinating our efforts on the international stage for a long time,” Putin said at a news conference.
But analysts of Russian policy in the Middle East say the treaty merely formalizes the existing situation in the region, where Russia must be careful to maintain friendly relations with various countries that are at odds with each other. said.
Ruslan Suleymanov, an independent analyst of Russia's Middle East affairs, said the new agreement codifies current relations between Russia and Iran but does not represent a new step for both countries.
Russia depends on arms supplies from Iran, but economically Russia is much more dependent on the United Arab Emirates, Suleymanov said.
“It is becoming increasingly difficult for Russia to strike a balance between Iran and other countries in the region,” Suleymanov said in response to written questions. He said Moscow had signed a declaration questioning Iran's sovereignty over the United Arab Emirates and three strategic islands in the Strait of Ormuz, reflecting Moscow's increasing dependence on Abu Dhabi. He pointed out that there was.
Nikita Smagin, an expert on Russia's Middle East policy at the Russian Council for International Affairs, a think tank, said that since Riyadh, Russia needs to keep in mind its relationship with Saudi Arabia in addition to its relationship with the UAE when negotiating with Iran. said. is a “very important partner in terms of influencing oil prices.”
For example, Smagin said Russia has not sent advanced fighter jets to Iran, likely because of Saudi Arabia's opposition.
“Overall, on the one hand, Russia's strategy of being a universal mediator in the Middle East who can talk to all sides has collapsed since the invasion of Ukraine, because Israel and the United States have been taken out of the equation,” Smagin said. “But if you think about the relationship between Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, within that triangle Russia can still remain an equidistant partner to all of them.”
Iranian leaders described the visit as more than a state visit, saying it represented a strategic turning point.
“This treaty is not only an important turning point in strengthening bilateral relations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on the social media network Telegram. He added: “This is not just a political agreement, but a roadmap for the future.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov said the timing of the treaty signing was not intended to distract from Mr. Trump's inauguration on Monday, and Mr. Araghchi told Iranian state television that the signing was months in advance. He said it was scheduled for.
Since the invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, Moscow and Tehran have grown closer. Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles and drones to Russia to support the Kremlin's war effort, according to U.S. and European officials. Iran has denied sending weapons to Moscow.
The Kremlin has provided diplomatic support to Tehran and is building two nuclear reactors at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. Moscow and Tehran have recently faced major setbacks in the region following the fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad regime.
Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, Russia has sought to counter what it sees as an aggressive, imperial, and U.S.-led Western hegemony by creating and formalizing a series of treaties.
The signed treaty states that Russia and Iran “reject unipolarity and hegemony in world affairs.”
In June, Russia signed a partnership agreement with North Korea, and in December, a security treaty with Belarus officially authorized the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in the country. Both treaties included mutual defense clauses.
Russia also leads an organization known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which includes Belarus and other former Soviet states, including Armenia in the Caucasus and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Central Asia.
The organization, which aims to counter NATO, is based on the principle that an attack on one member state should be recognized as an attack on all member states. The alliance has recently been challenged, with Armenia effectively freezing its membership.
Meanwhile, Iran faces a series of domestic and regional challenges, including sanctions that have weakened its armed group and thrown its economy into chaos. Trump's return as US president will likely result in further pressure and efforts by the US government to isolate Iran.
Apart from defense issues, Russia is working with Iran and other countries to develop an alternative to the Western-led Swift. Swift is a global messaging service that connects over 11,000 financial institutions and allows them to alert each other about pending transactions.
Moscow also wants to build a railway through Iran that would connect Russia directly to ports in the Persian Gulf. Aragushi said the agreement signed on Friday will allow Iran to become a conduit for Russian gas exports through a network of pipelines, transporting gas from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf coast. That means Iran is “becoming a major hub for gas exports,” he said.
Jalali, the ambassador to Russia, told Iranian media that Russian and Iranian leaders recognized that the old agreements between the two countries were outdated and did not reflect the realities of the current world and regional order. spoke.
He said the new agreement “takes into account all aspects of bilateral relations, including political stance.” How do we view power and how do we work together to move forward? ”
