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Writer's pictureMichael Julien

Putin owes Iran - he may be about to find out how much – by James Kilner and Akhtar Makoii for The Telegraph – 11.10.24

The stakes are high for both Moscow and Tehran at a thinly disguised summit meeting in reclusive Turkmenistan.


A conference in Turkmenistan celebrating a local poet’s 300th birthday is not an obvious spot for the first meeting between Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president.

But these are urgent times for the West’s most dangerous enemies.


Analysts said that the meeting in Ashgabat on Friday, which will focus on “a sharply aggravated situation in the Middle East”, appears to have been arranged at the last minute.


“It is a very strange forum to hold their first meeting,” said Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.


Until Monday, when Russian media announced the Putin-Pezeshkian meeting, not even Turkmen media had been reporting on the forum dedicated to Magtymguly Pyragy, a Turkmen philosopher born in 1724.


A handful of central Asian leaders have since confirmed their attendance at the forum, possibly to add credibility.


Now, though, Pyragy will be linked not just with 18th-century Turkmen nationalism and traditional poetry tinged with Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, but also with Iran-Russia diplomacy as the Middle East edges towards all-out conflict, and the war in Ukraine rages on.


Since the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Iran and Russia have become close allies, building on a partnership forged in the civil war in Syria almost 10 years ago.


There are reports that Russia is stepping up its supplies of military equipment, pictured in a Red Square parade. Tehran has sent thousands of drones and short-range missiles to Moscow. In return, Russia has been sending oil to Iran and giving it much-needed technical know-how.


On the face of it, Russia appears to be moving towards backing Iran further as there are unconfirmed reports that it has sent fighter jets and missile defence systems to Iran. But there is a feeling in Tehran that the Kremlin still owes Iran.


“Our relationship with Putin resembles that of being friends with someone who never pays their share when you go out,” a professor at a university near Tehran said on condition of anonymity.


But the professor said that Western sanctions had so badly crippled Iran’s economy that it was only able to act as a weak partner to Russia.


Iranian-made drones have been used by Russian in its war on Ukraine.


“Pezeshkian just needs to keep Putin satisfied, perhaps by promising to send more drones to Russia for use in the Ukraine war,” he said.


Although the Kremlin has hosted Hamas, Iran’s Gaza-based proxies, in the past 12 months and has both blamed the West for escalating conflict in the Middle East and applauded Iran for its restraint, this frustration towards Russia is reflected in Iranian state media.


Tehran’s Ettelaat newspaper has blamed Putin for “abandoning” Iran in Gaza, and for “maintaining his distance from the crisis”. The Hamshahri newspaper said that it was about time that the Kremlin delivered on its promise to send sophisticated S-400 missile defence systems to Iran.


“Access to the S-400 system can position Iran better in diplomatic and military negotiations with other countries,” the newspaper said.


The US-based Institute for the Study of War also said that it expected Putin and Pezeshkian to discuss how to respond to a “potential Israeli retaliation” for Tehran’s missile attack last week, but other analysts said the Kremlin would prefer to take an indirect role in the conflict.


“I think that would be too much in terms of antagonising America and Israel. Russia is also still desperately trying to keep Israel away from funding Ukraine,” said Stephen Hall, an assistant professor of Russian politics at the University of Bath.


Yuri Ushakov, a top Kremlin aide, said that at the meeting, Putin and Pezeshkian would also sign off on a bilateral agreement, expected to intensify cooperation, that has been the focus of intense diplomacy.


Last month, Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s security council, and Mikhail Mishustin, the Russian prime minister, both separately visited Tehran for talks on the deal with Pezeshkian. Pezeshkian only became Iran’s president at the end of July.


For Turkmenistan, wedged on former Soviet Central Asia’s southern border with Iran, the high-stakes Putin-Pezeshkian meeting is a rare opportunity to grab international attention.


Turkmenistan is one of the most repressive countries in the world, where Serdar Berdymukhamedov, the dour president, inherited power in 2022 from his cheerful father, a fast car enthusiast and an amateur DJ.


It is a reclusive place, hosting an obscure forum, disguising a high-stakes Russia-Iran summit.



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