Iran wants strategic ties with Russia
Iran is discussing construction of two nuclear power plant with Russia
Iranian president Raisi has made several public calls to build closer strategic ties with Russia. in contrast to previous president Rouhani who wanted to build the closer ties with West. He signed the nuclear deal with western powers under the Obama presidency. But relations strained as Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal re-impose the sanctions against Iran.
Iran is looking towards Russia and China to build strategic alliance as threats from Israel and America has increased in recent period. On his third foreign outing since he took over as president in August 2021, Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi visited Moscow this week. To his supporters, Raisi’s trip, on which he was accompanied by Iran’s foreign, oil, and economy ministers, is a turning point in Iranian-Russian relations, and those supporters might be right.
Hard-liners in Tehran—the advocates of a pro-Russia line—now hold all levers of power, and they are evidently determined to deepen relations with the Russians in a host of areas. No Iranian president since 1979 has made such frequent and consistent public calls for strategic ties with Moscow as Raisi.
Raisi, a
conservative cleric elected last year, said on January 19 that he had presented
Moscow with draft documents on strategic cooperation between the two countries
for the next two decades. Raisi said Iran had "no limits for expanding
ties with Russia."
Moscow and
Tehran have strong political, economic, and military ties and are key allies of
President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's decade-long civil war.
Ahead of the meeting, a Kremlin statement said the presidents will discuss a wide range of issues, including the 2015 nuclear agreement that lifted crippling Western economic sanctions in exchange for curbing Tehran's nuclear program.
According to
recent Russian media reports, Iran is seeking modern fighters, such as Su-35
fighters, air defence systems, radar stations and electronic warfare
technology from Russia.
Iran wants to protect its nuclear facilities as Israel is threatening to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran is concerned as top Israeli general has confessed to kill the Irani general Sulemani. Iran is also seeking modern weapons and military hardware from China.
The Turkish news agency Anadolu has reported Iranian foreign minister saying that Iran and Russia discussed the construction of new nuclear power plants in Iran. Tehran and Moscow signed an agreement in 2014 to build two nuclear power plants in Iran.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Twitter that
he had a discussion Thursday with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in
Moscow where they talked about the acceleration of the construction of new
nuclear power plants, the development of comprehensive cooperation in the light
of the recent agreements between the leaders of the two countries and the
facilitation of the consular affairs of the citizens of both countries.
He added
that "excellent cooperation” will be established in the new period of
relations with Russia. The two ministers met as part of Iranian President
Ibrahim Raisi's visit to Russia.
Iran's first
nuclear power plant was built by Russia in the southern city of Bushehr. The
Bushehr nuclear power plant, which started operating at full capacity in 2012,
was handed over to Iran one year later.
Khalid Bhatti
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