Putin, on a one-day visit to attend a gas exporting nations’ summit, is set to meet with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani. On his first trip to Iran in eight years, Putin, accompanied by his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, went straight into a meeting with Khamenei, the Islamic republic’s ultimate authority.
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A Kremlin spokesman was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying that Putin and Khamenei had agreed at their talks that global powers should not impose their political will on Syria. “This threat should be neutralised wisely and with closer interaction”.
“I invite the leaders of the countries in this group to partner with Iran and invest in developing Iran’s gas resources for mutual benefit”, he said.
As Russian President gifted a copy of an old handwritten Quran to Iran’s supreme leader, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said that Putin’s influential role in the Syrian conflict has enhanced the regional and worldwide standing of Russia and President Putin in particular.
Both Moscow and Tehran are backing Syria’s “President Bashar al Assad ” http://news.yahoo.com/russias-putin-arrives-tehran-100552859.html in contrast to Western powers, Turkey and Gulf Arab states.
Russia’s leading expert on oriental affairs, leading research fellow at the Institute of the World Economy and International Relations, Georgy Mirsky, has told TASS that the countries competing on the world market of hydrocarbons might cooperate successfully along strategic lines.
The countries that oppose Assad, led by the USA, have said the Syrian leader’s actions against his own people, including the barrel-bombing of civilians, mean he had lost all legitimacy and should leave office.
The President of Russian Federation stressed: “As you mentioned, the Americans want to attain their goals at the negotiating table because they could not attain them in the arena of Syrian domestic conflicts and we are vigilant about this matter”.
The decision follows a landmark deal between six world powers and Tehran in July, under which Iran agreed long-term curbs on a nuclear program that the West has suspected was aimed at creating a nuclear bomb.
Elsewhere, Kerry said the United States could broaden military cooperation with Russian Federation in Syria, but that such a move should not deter opposition groups trying to topple Assad.
Putin ordered Russia’s first military campaign outside the former Soviet Union in decades to bolster Assad’s regime.
Agence France-Presse reported that Moscow had used the visit as an opportunity to ease restrictions upon working on Iranian nuclear enrichment sites.
Russian Federation and Iran signed a contract for Moscow to supply Tehran with S-300 surface-to-air missile systems on 9 November.
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“We expect that after sanctions are lifted Iran will prefer to work with the Russian Federation on many tracks especially in hi-tech areas such as aviation, aerospace, radio electronics, shipbuilding”, Russian Deputy Premier Dmitry Rogozin said.
