Russia and Iran Sign Cooperation Treaty in the Kremlin
President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, signed a major cooperation treaty on Friday in the Kremlin, solidifying an alliance between two countries driven by mutual desire to challenge the West.
The treaty was the latest Russia has signed with a country that is engaged in a conflict with Western states since Moscow invaded Ukraine almost three years ago, and represents an effort to improve its global standing before the start of the second Trump presidency.
Iran and Russia have been subjected to numerous sanctions by the West, and trade and finance are at the forefront of the treaty signed Friday.
The published agreement covers military issues and specifies that in case either Iran or Russia are attacked, the treaty signatories would not give any military or other aid to the aggressor that “would facilitate the continuation of the aggression.”
But in contrast to the accords that Moscow has signed with other allies, the deal with Iran stops short of including a mutual defense clause, according to Iran’s ambassador to Moscow.
“Our country’s independence and security, as well as self-reliance, are very important,” Kazem Jalali, told IRNA, an Iranian news agency, according to TASS. “We are not interested in joining any bloc.”
Speaking in the Kremlin ahead of the meeting, Mr. Putin called Mr. Pezeshkian’s visit “especially important” and said the signed agreement was “big, basic, comprehensive.”
Iranian leaders have portrayed the trip as more than just a state visit, saying it represented a strategic turning point.
“This treaty is not only a key turning point that strengthens our bilateral ties,” wrote Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on the social media network Telegram. He added, “This is not just a political agreement, it’s the road map to the future.”
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that the timing of the treaty’s signing was not meant to divert attention from Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Monday, and Mr. Araghchi told state television in Iran that it had been scheduled months ago.
Since the invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, Moscow and Tehran have been growing closer. Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles and drones to Russia, according to U.S. and European officials, to aid the Kremlin’s war effort. Iran has denied it is providing weapons to Moscow.
The Kremlin has provided some diplomatic support to Tehran, but has had to balance the relationship with maintaining ties with Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, both of which are opponents of Iran. Both Moscow and Tehran have recently faced a major setback in the region with the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.
Since the start of the war, Russia has been working to counter what it sees as an aggressive and imperial Western hegemony, led by the United States, by creating and formalizing a series of treaties.
In June, Russia signed a partnership agreement with North Korea, and in December, a security treaty with Belarus formalized the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in that country. Both treaties included a mutual defense clause.
Russia also leads what is known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which includes Belarus and several other former Soviet states including Armenia in the Caucasus, and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Central Asia.
Intended as a counterweight to NATO, the organization is based on a principle that an attack against one member should be perceived as an attack against all. The alliance has been challenged recently with Armenia effectively freezing its membership.
For its part, Iran is facing a cascade of challenges at home and in the region, with its militant allies weakened and its economy in shambles because of sanctions. The return of Mr. Trump as U.S. president will most likely bring more pressure and efforts by Washington to isolate Iran.
Apart from defense issues, Russia has been working with Iran and other countries to develop an alternative to the Western-led Swift, a global messaging service that connects more than 11,000 financial institutions and allows them to alert one another about pending transactions.
Moscow also hopes to build a railway through Iran that would connect Russia directly with ports on the Persian Gulf. Mr. Araghchi said that the deal signed on Friday would allow Iran to serve as a passageway for Russian gas exports through its network of pipelines, bringing gas from the Caspian Sea to the shores of the Persian Gulf. It means, he said, that Iran is “becoming a major hub for gas exports.”
Mr. Jalali, the ambassador to Russia, told Iranian media that the leaders of Russia and Iran realized that an older agreement between the two countries was outdated and did not reflect the realities of the current world and regional order.
The new accord, he said, “takes into consideration every aspect of our bilateral relations including our political posturing. How do we view power and how do we move forward together.”
