Putin heading to Iran for first time in eight years

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Tehran and attend a summit of countries exporting gas, Reuters quoted his aide Yuri Ushakov as saying on Friday.

Putin has not visited Iran since 2007 and while in Tehran is expected to hold talks with the Islamic Republic’s President Hassan Rouhani, Ushakov said.

Iran and Russia have recently strengthened relations and Moscow is reportedly considering loans worth $7 billion to Tehran.

Tehran will be playing host to a Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) on November 23, as it prepares for the lifting of Western sanctions next year, under the terms of a nuclear agreement it struck with world powers in Vienna in early July.

Iran has also gained a seat at the table in negotiations over the future of Syria, at Russia’s insistence. Both countries are supporting embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad in the talks, which also include the US and Saudi Arabia. The US previously opposed any future for Syria in which Assad is part of the picture but over the past month has softened and is now willing to tolerate him in a transitional government.

Ahead of his visit to Iran on November 23, Putin will meet his German and British counterparts on the sidelines of the upcoming G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey on November 15 (Sunday) but is not scheduled to have bilateral talks with US President Barack Obama, Ushakov said.

“A meeting between Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama is not officially planned, but we cannot exclude the possibility that the presidents will interact within the summit’s framework,” he said.

Moscow’s relations with Washington slumped to a post-Cold War nadir over Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March
2014 and its subsequent support of an insurgency in the country’s east.

Putin and Obama last crossed paths at the UN General Assembly meeting in September, where they held a 90-minute meeting, their first formal bilateral encounter in two years.

Putin is expected to discuss the Syria crisis in bilateral encounters with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Ergodan, Ushakov said.

The US and its allies have accused Russia of using its bombing campaign in Syria to target Western-backed moderate opposition groups to Assad.

Putin is also expected to meet Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde on the margins of the G20.

— AFP contributed to this report.