Nikolai Patrushev will meet his Iranian counterpart and Iranian president, as Moscow and Tehran look to deepen ties.
Tehran, Iran – The Russian security official held talks about the war in Ukraine and improving bilateral relations with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and senior security official Ali Shamkhani.
Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, met the Iranian president in Tehran on Wednesday afternoon after a meeting with Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
Raisi said Iran still opposes war as a primary policy, according to state media.
He was quoted as saying that “the evolution of the scale and scope of the war is of concern to all nations.”
However, the Iranian president said that Tehran and Moscow are working to raise the level of relations to a “strategic” level, which he said is “the most decisive response to the policy of sanctions and destabilization of the United States and its allies.”
The United States and the European Union imposed sanctions on Tehran and Moscow over the war. Washington has also continued to build on its harsh sanctions against Iran that have been in place since 2018, when it unilaterally abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
On Wednesday, Shamkhani told Patrushev that Iran wants to stop the war, according to Nournews, an outlet close to SNSC.
“Iran welcomes and supports any initiative that will lead to a ceasefire and peace between Russia and Ukraine on the basis of dialogue and is ready to play a role to end the war,” Shamkhani was quoted as saying.
Patrushev reportedly criticized the Western media’s role in “misleading public opinion about how the Ukrainian crisis began and its facts on the ground.”
The meetings come days after Iran admitted for the first time that it had sold drones to Russia, but claimed that a “limited” number had been shipped months before the war began.
Kyiv accused Tehran of lying about its arms supplies to Moscow. Ukraine faced blackouts after weeks of Russian attacks on its infrastructure, which it says were carried out with the help of Shahed-136 kamikaze aircraft and other types of Iranian-made drones.
On Wednesday, Shamkhani said that Iran wants to quickly improve energy, transport, agricultural, trade, banking and environment relations with Moscow, and use the capabilities of multilateral organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, of which it became an official member earlier this year.
Patrushev was quoted as saying that the most important goal of his visit is to accelerate the implementation of joint projects and strengthen cooperation.
Iranian Petroleum Minister Javad Oji told reporters on Wednesday after a cabinet meeting that Raisi’s administration was following up on a $40 billion energy deal signed with Russia’s Gazprom during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tehran in July.
“We also have on the agenda the development of gas fields and gas export lines, according to which we have signed contracts worth four billion dollars with Russia,” he said.
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