Beirut: Vladimir Putin is in Tehran for talks with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani and the Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The official reason for his visit is to attend the Oil Exporting Countries Forum and it is Putin’s first to Tehran since December 2007. It’s also his fifth meeting with President Rouhani since being re-elected to the Kremlin in 2013.
The bilateral agenda is packed with a variety of economic, political and security affairs. Politics will be discussed with the ayatollah and economics with President Rouhani and his executive team.
Economically the two leaders have much to discuss, starting with the Russian expansion of the Bushehr nuclear plant, the first civilian nuclear power plant in the region, launched in September 2011. It was set up by the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy almost twenty years ago and because of western pressure on Moscow, didn’t start operations until 2011. Rouhani wants to add nuclear reactors to the plant and to increase its electricity production, via Russian experts.
Two years ago, operational control of the plant was transferred fully from Russia to Iran. Seemingly the Russian experts will be returning to Bushehr in early 2016. Additionally bilateral trade is high on the agenda, which currently stands at $1.5 billion, growing approximately at an impressive five per cent annually. Putin will also discuss cooperation in the extraction of oil and gas from the Caspian Sea and the delayed delivery of long range surface-to-air S-300 missiles, which Moscow had signed off with Tehran back in 2007.
Iran also plans to coordinate hydrocarbon production with Russia, since both countries are major producers. Contrary to what many had expected, economic relations did not plummet after Iran signed off its deal with the US earlier last summer. Although the Iranian business sector is bracing itself for a series of western investments in banking and services, much of the military technology and industrial sectors will remain safely in Russian hands as they have been since the Islamic Revolution started in 1979.
Also eight years ago, Iran became the only country in western Asia invited by Moscow to join the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a Russian counterpart to Nato that was established back in 1992. It originally included six post-Soviet countries and Putin has relied heavily on its political umbrella for much of his political activity in Ukraine. Iran has since refrained from giving a commitment to the Moscow-backed Organisation and Russia will re-stress its invitation during the Putin visit.
The Russian President after all is seeking an international coalition with Iran that will serve his interests on Ukraine, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in Asia.
Militarily the two countries will continue cooperation in the Syria War, a country that has been the focal point of their Middle East policy since 2011. They are united in wanting to end the war in Syria, which has already cost them billions of dollars, to fight Daesh, and to curb the political influence of Saudi Arabia and Turkey in Syria. Putin’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov played an instrumental role in bringing Iran to the negotiating table in Vienna last October.
The two countries have recently signed off a nine-point communiqué that calls for a peaceful political process in Syria and unites their efforts against Daesh. This will become all the more binding after the UN passed a resolution on Daesh after the recent Paris attacks.
The two sides had to soften their initial stance at Vienna, agreeing for a political process to go hand-in-hand with a coordinated war on terrorism. Previously they had called for a war on terrorism first, followed by a political process in Damascus. Both still refuse to see any formula that forces President Bashar Al Assad out of power at the end of a transition period in the summer of 2017.
Both are calling for internationally-monitored presidential elections that any Syrian can run for, including the Syrian President himself. They now face the task of pressuring their allies in Syria to agree to a formula that would bring elements of the Syrian Opposition into government.
President Al Assad curtly still refuses international monitors and any talk of starting a political process before eradicating Daesh. This is problematic for both Moscow and Tehran who have given assurances to the international community that they can extract concessions from Damascus if the world allows them to act freely and at will.
Russia’s military intervention in Syria, mandated by the Russian Parliament, ends in early January 2016. By then they hope to have achieved significant military gains that would turn the tide in favour of the Syrian Government, increasing the negotiating power of their allies. A ground intervention is currently not on the table for Moscow — at least for now — and instead, Iranian proxies like Hezbollah will do the job with the Syrian Army.
