Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, on March 29, 2023 led ministry officials and a member of the parliament on a visit to Moscow where he met with Russian counterpart Sergie Lavrov to discuss ways of reinforcing bilateral relations and matters of common concern.
Goals of the Visit
Tehran sent its top diplomat to Moscow to achieve the following goals.
1- Discussing nuclear talks:
Through the visit, Iran sought to discuss efforts to revive the stalled nuclear deal. On arrival in Moscow, Abdollahian emphasized that there is still a window of opportunity for the talks to return to the JCPOA, but it won’t remain open forever. He further noted that the parliament is planning to discuss setting a ceiling for the nuclear talks. Lavrov showed support for the return of involved parties to the deal, but expressed Russia’s opposition to sanctions imposed against Iran.
Earlier, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kanni visited the Norwegian capital Oslo on March 23, 2023, to meet politicians from the three European countries involved in the nuclear talks i.e. Germany, France and Britain.
Despite conflicting narratives from Iran and the West about whether the meeting tackled the nuclear talks, the meeting itself is a sign that Tehran is willing to break the deadlock in its negotiations. Iran is also aiming to leverage the understandings reached with the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, that mandates increased inspection visits to Iran’s nuclear sites after it detected uranium enriched to levels just below nuclear weapons-grade in February 2023.
It should be noted that these efforts have a questionable chance of success, given Iran’s persistent intransigence and defiance. Previously, it rejected a draft nuclear deal proposed by the European Union during talks in August last year, and insisted on demands that Washington and European allies consider as unattainable, which resulted in the talks being stalled in September 2022.
2- Attempting to achieve strategic cooperation:
Tehran wanted to use the visit to spur Russia to finalize a 20-year strategic cooperation agreement. Amir Abdollahian noted that the talks about the agreement are in the final stages, and invited his Russian counterpart to visit Tehran soon to sign the final document.
On the other hand, the two sides discussed areas of trade and economic cooperation. Abdollahian claimed that trade between the two countries tripled in the past 2.5 years, while Iranian sources say that their trade went up to USD 4.9 billion in 2022.
The two sides also discussed the developments of the North-South Transit Corridor on which Russia relies to export its good to South Asia, and also emphasized the need for speeding up Iran’s joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, after it signed a Memorandum of Obligations to become a permanent member of organization in September 2022.
3- Discussing regional issues:
Iran attempted to take advantage of the visit to reiterate its involvement in arrangements for the rapprochement between Syria and Turkey, which are mediated by Russia. Tehran was previously excluded from these attempts, but later Russia and Turkey agreed to involve it in the process.
Within this context, Amir Abdollahian announced that deputy foreign ministers of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Russia are set to hold a meeting, which was supposed to be scheduled early April in Moscow.
The meeting was postponed in mid-March after Damascus insisted on having a clear agreement on the withdrawal of Turkish troops from northern Syria. In addition, Tehran seeks to leverage Russia's influence in the Caucasus to push for de-escalation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, especially after renewed tensions between the two countries over the Lachin corridor that connects Armenia to the Nagorno-Karabakh highlands located within Azerbaijan's borders. The Iranian foreign minister expressed rejection of any changes in the political geography of the Caucasus region, and called for calm between the two neighboring countries.
Furthermore, Tehran is concerned that Azerbaijan may put pressure on Armenia to agree to establish the Zangezur border crossing with Iran, and then isolate Iran from Armenia.
4- Unlikely military deals:
Iranian sources noted that Abdollahian’s visit to Moscow was part of efforts to underline military cooperation with Russia, which picked up since the crisis in Ukraine broke out when Iran supplied Russia with drones. Additionally, the sources noted that an agreement was signed to buy Sukhoi-35 fighter planes from Russia.
According to Iranian media, the first batch of the advanced fighters were supposed to be delivered by the end of March 2023. Furthermore, the delegation accompanying Abdollahian to Moscow did not include any military officials. It only included the foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani Chafi, deputy foreign minister for diplomatic and economic affairs Mahdi Safari, other ministry officials, the special representative of the president and charge d'affaires of the Iranian Embassy in Afghanistan Hassan Kazemi Qomi. It should be noted the Russian and Iranian foreign ministers said nothing about the deal.
On the other hand, US media reports claimed that Russia is helping Iran gain advanced digital-surveillance capabilities and advanced software that would allow it to hack the phones and systems of dissidents and adversaries. Previously, Moscow refused to share such capabilities with Tehran.
Long Lasting Implications
The implications of Abdollahian’s visit to Moscow can be outlined as follows:
1- Countering western pressures:
Tehran used the visit to send a message to Washington and western allies that its cooperation with Russia will continue despite criticism from the West and mounting tensions of the Ukrainian crisis.
In this context, Abdollahian, in a joint press conference with Russian counterpart, confirmed that Iran's response to the US inside Syria was resolute and clear. He was referring to the attacks carried out by pro-Iranian militias against an American military base in northeastern Syria on March 24, 2023, in response to the US strike on two facilities run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps near Deir Ezzor province in eastern Syria. The US strike was in response to a drone attack carried out by Iranian-backed militias on the US-led coalition base near Hasakah, which resulted in the death of an American contractor and the injury of six others. However, Abdollahian sought to downplay the impact of the attacks, and affirmed that Tehran is not seeking confrontation with the United States.
2- Reiterating the foreign ministry’s role:
The visit came at a time when pressure and criticism is mounting on the foreign ministry and Abdollahian himself over his approach to the nuclear talks, as well as his questionable capability of leading Iranian diplomacy, especially after Ali Shamkhani, the head of the Supreme National Security Council, came to the forefront after cutting a landmark deal with Saudi Arabia on March 10 in Beijing to restore diplomatic relations with the Gulf Arab country, and reaching understandings with Abu Dhabi and Baghdad. Furthermore, Kamal Kharrazi, head of Iran's Strategic Council for Foreign Relations, visited Lebanon and Syria without the presence of Abdollahian.
The situation worsened after political and diplomatic sources disclosed that Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei ordered Abbas Araghchi, former chief nuclear negotiator under former president Hassan Rouhani, to go to Oslo and meet representatives of Germany, Britain and France to prepare for resolving the deadlock over the nuclear talks. If the claims prove to be true, then the current negotiating team led by Ali Bagheri Kani is likely to be excluded from the talks if they are resumed.
The conclusion would be that Abdollahian’s visit to Moscow came as part of pragmatic cooperation between Iran and Russia. Taking advantage of the crisis over Ukraine, Iran seeks to promote this cooperation as an alliance with Russia. However, reality indicates the opposite because to date Russia has not signed a strategic agreement with Iran. Additionally, there are no signs that Iran has received any of the Su-35 fighters. Furthermore, Russia continues to coordinate with Israel about Syria, which became evident in the Israeli recurrent strikes against installations of pro-Iranian militias in Syrian territory. On top of that, Russia is unlikely to play a role in breaking the stalemate in the nuclear talks because of the widening rift with the West, on the one hand, and because Moscow does not want Iran to reach a deal with the West that would leave Russia alone in the field to confront pressures from the West.
