The summit with Turkey’s President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan
and Iran’s
Ebrahim Raisi
in Tehran is nominally intended to focus on peace talks in the war in Syria, but officials expect that the conversation among the three leaders will be dominated by the crisis in Ukraine. Mr. Putin is expected to use the trip to shore up relations with both Iran and Turkey, who have maintained friendly relations with Russia despite the West’s efforts to isolate the Kremlin.
The leaders are expected to discuss security, Turkish and possible Iranian involvement in the war in Ukraine, and a United Nations-backed proposal to resume exports of vital Ukrainian grain supplies via the Black Sea. Russia and Iran also agreed to deepen cooperation on energy, signing a $40 billion memorandum of understanding for oil-and-gas projects on Tuesday.
Mr. Putin’s trip comes days after President Biden’s visit to the region last week in which he sought to rally Middle East nations against China and Russia in a broader confrontation among world powers resulting from the attack on Ukraine.
“It’s the definition of pushback,” said
Ali Vaez,
the Iran project director and senior adviser to the president of the International Crisis Group. “They now share a vision of a coalition of sanctioned states, comprised of countries like Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has carefully cultivated relations with a range of Middle East nations.
Photo:
Mikhail Klimentyev/Associated Press
The trip is only the second time Mr. Putin has left Russia since he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, and his first foray outside his immediate sphere of influence, following a visit to the small Central Asian country of Tajikistan in June.
Mr. Erdogan arrived in Iran late on Monday. The Turkish president met Mr. Raisi on Tuesday morning and held talks with Iran’s Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali…
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