By Guy Faulconbridge and Parisa Hafezi
Moscow / Dubai (Reuters) – The supreme leader of Irrania, Ali Khamenei, sent his Minister of Foreign Affairs to Moscow Thursday with a letter for President Vladimir Putin to inform the Kremlin of nuclear negotiations with the United States, which threatened to bomb the Islamic Republic.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran with bombing and prolonging prices from third countries that buy Iranian oil if Tehran does not reach an agreement with Washington for his disputed nuclear program. The United States has moved additional war aircraft in the region.
The Trump administration and Iran had talks in Oman last weekend that the two parties described as positive and constructive. Before a second round of talks that will take place in Rome this weekend, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araqchi said on Wednesday that Iran’s right to enrich uranium was not negotiable.
Russia, a longtime ally of Tehran, plays a role in Iranian nuclear negotiations with the West as a member of the United Nations Security Council at the veto dispute and signatory of a previous nuclear agreement that Trump abandoned during his first mandate in 2018.
“Regarding the nuclear problem, we have always had close consultations with our friends China and Russia. Now, this is a good opportunity to do so with Russian officials,” Iranian state television said.
Letter for Putin
He said he was transmitting a letter to Putin who had tackled regional and bilateral problems. Putin then received Araqchi at the Kremlin.
The Western powers claim that Iran refines uranium to a high degree of fissile purity beyond what is justifiable for a civil nuclear energy program and close to the level adapted to an atomic bomb. Iran denies in search of nuclear weapons and says that it is entitled to a civil nuclear program.
Moscow bought weapons from Iran for the war in Ukraine and signed a 20 -year strategic partnership agreement with Tehran earlier this year, although it did not include mutual defense clause. The two countries were allies of the battlefield in Syria for years until their Bashar al-Assad ally was overthrown in December.
Putin has maintained good terms with Khamenei while Russia and Iran are interpreted as enemies from the West, but Moscow wishes not to trigger a nuclear weapon race in the Middle East.
Russia said that any military strike against Iran would be illegal and unacceptable. On Tuesday, the Kremlin refused to comment when it was asked if Russia was ready to take control of the Iranian actions of uranium enriched within the framework of a possible future nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States.
(Report by Reuters in Moscow and Dubai; edition by Mark Trevelyan, Peter Graff and Mark Heinrich)
