Vladimir Putin seems unusually relaxed. During the Tehran summit with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the Russian President renounced any distance he usually keeps in Moscow.
“I’m happy to be on hospitable soil,” Putin said on Tuesday evening to Russian and Iranian journalists who had traveled with him. “We will strengthen our cooperation on international security issues and help resolve the Syrian conflict.” Raisi returned the compliments and praised the joint effort “to fight terrorism”. Tehran has been on Russia’s side in the Syrian conflict for eleven years.
Although the meeting was officially about the situation in Syria, the focus of the press conference was on the situation in Ukraine. Tight-lipped, Putin gave the West the cold shoulder. Although he announced compliance with the applicable supply contracts, he also spoke of technical problems and the lack of permits that could lead to less gas for Europe.
More important to Putin, however, was probably a completely different topic anyway. US intelligence circles had leaked in recent weeks that Iran was ready to supply the Russian army with combat drones it produced itself. The Iranian side did not confirm the delivery in Tehran, but the rumors about the ongoing training of Russian soldiers at the kamikaze-Drones are making the rounds in Iran. Such Iranian arms deliveries to the Ukraine war could disrupt talks on a new nuclear deal.
Putin and Erdoğan are also critical of the Iranian nuclear program
After several Iranian violations, then US President Donald Trump terminated the agreement negotiated with the USA, Great Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany. Originally, Tehran was to be committed to renouncing nuclear weapons. Just last week, during his visit to Saudi Arabia, US President Joe Biden repeated that an Iranian nuclear bomb would be prevented by all means.
Putin and Erdoğan are also critical of the Iranian nuclear program. Last year, the Turkish president accused Tehran of wanting to take control of the entire region. Erdoğan has been developing NATO member Turkey into a regional power for years, and this has also been felt by Putin in Tehran. It is usually the Russian President who, seemingly with relish, keeps his guests of state waiting in front of the cameras. In Tehran he now found himself alone in front of the press photographers. His stony face disappeared when he shook hands with the visibly relaxed Erdoğan when he finally emerged. But that video circulating on social media many observers see the scene as an indication of Turkey’s growing political weight.
With his uncompromising demeanor, Erdoğan wanted to demonstrate his claim to power in Syria – but it also showed the problems the three nations have with each other. The Turkish army already controls the border areas in northern Syria and the rebel enclave of Idlib. But now the Kurdish YPG rebels who keep infiltrating are to be driven out of a corridor 30 kilometers wide. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei warned Erdoğan before the meeting against a Turkish offensive. Tehran and Moscow want to allow their allied Syrian regime and their own militias to advance into the area. Erdoğan needs Putin’s green light for his war as Russian warplanes control the airspace over north-west Syria.
The blockade of the Black Sea ports is increasingly costing the Kremlin sympathy
As a concession, Turkey is offering to help export Ukrainian wheat. The blockade of the Black Sea ports is increasingly costing the Kremlin sympathy in many countries in the southern hemisphere, where the exorbitant rise in wheat prices could soon lead to social unrest.
A Turkish-Russian commission is scheduled to negotiate the details of an export mechanism by Thursday. While Kyiv is demanding Turkish security guarantees because of the need to defuse mines off Ukrainian ports, Moscow wants to check all sailing merchant ships for weapons. With his demand to enable the export of Russian wheat, which is currently allegedly banned, Putin apparently also wants to declare conquered port cities such as Mariupol Russian state territory.
Should Erdoğan then also succeed in convincing the government in Washington to withdraw the remaining US soldiers stationed in Syria as requested by Iran, then negotiations to settle the wars in Ukraine and Syria will hardly be possible without Turkey . Erdoğan would have put himself in a whole new position of power.
According to the Iranian Oil Ministry, Putin and Raisi also agreed in Tehran on investments by the Russian oil giant Gazprom in the Iranian gas and oil industry, which is suffering from Western sanctions. The sum of 40 billion dollars mentioned by the Iranian news agency Shana is to flow into the exploration of new gas fields and the construction of a pipeline network.
After years of isolation enforced by the West, Tehran is once again a capital of diplomacy, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasr Kanani said on Tuesday. There has been little reaction from opposition and government circles in Syria. After eleven years of war, people there have got used to not paying much attention to declarations of intent.