MOSCOW: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in Moscow on Friday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the signing of a strategic partnership treaty between the two countries, Russia\u2019s TASS state news agency reported.
\nPezeshkian, on his first Kremlin visit since winning the presidency last July after the death in a helicopter crash of his predecessor, is due to hold talks with Putin focusing on bilateral ties and international issues before signing the treaty.
\nRussia has cultivated closer ties with Iran and other countries hostile toward the US, such as North Korea, since the start of the Ukraine war, and has strategic pacts with Pyongyang and close ally Belarus, as well as a strategic partnership agreement with China.
\nThe 20-year Russia-Iran agreement, which will include provisions for closer defense cooperation, is likely to worry the West which sees both countries as malign influences on the world stage.
\nMoscow and Tehran say their increasingly close ties are not directed against other countries.
\nRussia has made extensive use of Iranian drones during the war in Ukraine and the United States accused Tehran in September of delivering close-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine. Tehran denies supplying drones or missiles.
\nThe Kremlin has declined to confirm it has received Iranian missiles, but has acknowledged that its cooperation with Iran includes \u201cthe most sensitive areas.\u201d
\nPutin met Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan in October and at a cultural forum in Turkmenistan the same month.
\nPezeshkian is accompanied to Moscow by his oil minister, and Western sanctions on the sector are likely to be discussed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in Moscow on Friday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the signing of a strategic partnership treaty between the two countries, Russia\u2019s TASS state news agency reported. Pezeshkian, on his first Kremlin visit since winning the presidency last July after the death in a helicopter crash of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-456020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n