Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Ali Larijani, top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader on nuclear issues, to discuss Tehran’s nuclear program, the Kremlin said on Sunday.
The meeting came as Iran prepares to resume talks with the E3.
France, Britain and Germany told Iran last Thursday that they would restore UN sanctions unless it reopened talks on its nuclear program immediately and produced concrete results by the end of August.
On Sunday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Today Russian President Vladimir Putin received Ali Larijani, supreme adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader, in the Kremlin.”
“On behalf of his leadership, the Iranian representative provided assessments of the escalated situation in the Middle East and around the Iranian nuclear program,” he added.
“The Russian side expressed well-known positions aimed at stabilizing the situation in the region and a political settlement of the issues related to the Iranian nuclear program,” the spokesperson said.
A source told Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Sunday that Iran and the European troika have agreed to resume their nuclear negotiations.
“Tehran and the European troika have come to an agreement in principle on the resumption of the talks about Iran’s nuclear program, but the timing and location of the negotiations are under debate,” the source said.
The decision as to which country will be hosting the upcoming talks has not been finalized yet, the source added.
Meanwhile, Vahid Ahmadi, a member of the parliamentary commission on national security, told the Iran Observer news website that Iran will not return to nuclear negotiations unless three conditions are met.
He said the conditions include: “International condemnation of recent attacks on the country's territory, compensation for military damages and guarantees against new acts of aggression from the USA or Israel.”
Russia, a longstanding ally of Tehran, plays a role in Iran's nuclear negotiations with the West as a veto-wielding UN Security Council member and a signatory to an earlier nuclear deal Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
Currently, Tehran is under increasing Western pressure to resume talks with the E3 powers. The European Troika foreign ministers told their Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi that the countries are moving to activate the “snapback” mechanism at the end of August unless an agreement is reached.
Last week, Iranian newspaper Etemad said Iran is trying to convince Russia and China to withdraw from the nuclear deal with an aim to annul Resolution 2231, which expires in October and provides the legal framework that includes the “snapback” mechanism for reimposing UN sanctions on Iran.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with his Iranian counterpart on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Foreign Ministers Council Meeting in Tianjin last week.
The parties continued their exchange of views on regional and international issues of mutual interest. They reiterated the imperative of resolving the crisis surrounding Iran’s nuclear program exclusively through political and diplomatic means, in strict compliance with international law.
Two days prior to the Lavrov-Araghchi meeting, Russia rejected an Axios report saying Putin has told both Trump and Iranian officials that he supports the idea of a nuclear deal in which Iran is unable to enrich uranium.
Axios also said that while Moscow publicly advocates for Iran's right to enrich, Putin has taken a tougher position in private in the wake of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran.
Two sources said the Russians also briefed the Israeli government about Putin's position regarding Iran's uranium enrichment. "We know that this is what Putin told the Iranians," a senior Israeli official said.
Putin also expressed that position in calls last week with Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron.
An Alliance with Reservations
While Moscow has bought weapons from Iran for its war in Ukraine and signed a 20-year strategic partnership deal with Tehran earlier this year, their relationship since the 16th century, when Muscovy officially established relations with the Persian Empire, has at times been troubled.
The agreement does not include a mutual defense clause, but it says both countries will work together against common military threats, develop their military-technical cooperation, and take part in joint exercises.
Inside Russia, there were calls for Russia to come to the aid of its partner and to supply Iran with the same support which Washington had given to Ukraine - including air defense systems, missiles and satellite intelligence.
Larijani is the first Iranian official to visit Moscow since Iran and Israel ended their 12-day war. Before that, Araghchi traveled to Moscow on June 23, the eve of the ceasefire. Reports said the FM delivered a message from the Iranian leader to Putin.
A senior source told Reuters at the time that Araghchi was due to deliver a letter from Khamenei to Putin, seeking more help from Russia.
Iran has not been impressed with Russia's support so far, Iranian sources told Reuters, and the country wants Putin to do more to back it against Israel and the United States.
The sources did not elaborate on what assistance Tehran wanted.
Araghchi’s visit came days before the US strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.
The Kremlin at the time denied that the Iranian FM was carrying a letter from Khamenei.
However, the Farhikhtegan newspaper, whose editorial board is headed by the Iranian leader's senior adviser on international affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati, revealed details of the letter, before later deleting it.
The newspaper said Araghchi had conveyed Khamenei “discontent” over what Tehran considered Moscow's shortcomings during the recent war with Israel.
