Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Iranian President Ebrahim Raissi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran next Tuesday. This is reported by the Russian Presidential Office.
It is only Putin’s second foreign visit since Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine. At the end of June, Putin traveled to Central Asia.
According to the Interfax agency, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that the three heads of state would talk about improving the situation in the civil war country Syria.
In addition, Putin will also have a bilateral meeting with Erdogan.
Shortly before the announcement of Putin’s trip to Iran, the United States said it had indications that Iran wanted to support Russia in the war of aggression against Ukraine.
“Our information shows that the Iranian government is preparing to rapidly deploy several hundred unmanned aerial vehicles, including those capable of carrying weapons,” US President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in Washington on Monday.
“Our information also suggests that Iran is preparing to train Russian units in the use of these drones,” Sullivan said. “The first training sessions could start as early as mid-July.”
According to Sullivan, it is unclear whether Iran has already delivered drones to Russia. The National Security Advisor pointed out that the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen are already using Iranian drones for attacks against Saudi Arabia.
Iran has denied Sullivan’s statements. “There hasn’t been anything like that lately and our position on the Ukraine conflict is well known,” said foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani on Tuesday. Although Tehran understands Russia’s reaction to the eastward expansion of NATO, it is in favor of a diplomatic and against a military solution to the crisis.
