Russia’s President Vladimir Putin vowed Thursday to “do everything” to help end the Middle East war when he met Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian for talks ahead of a regional summit, Russian media reported.
The leaders of two of the world’s most sanctioned nations met after arriving in Turkmenistan for a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States that starts Friday in the Caspian Sea resort of Avaza.
Putin and Pezeshkian also met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan last month. The contacts came with Iran-US talks at an apparent impasse. Putin and Pezeshkian will attend the summit of the CIS originally a grouping of former Soviet nations with leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Turkmenistan and other Central Asia states.
“We are ready to do everything that is in our power to contribute to the settlement of this situation,” said Putin. He added that Iran had made “real efforts to end the war” since US-Israeli attacks started on February 28, according to Russian news agencies. Pezeshkian said this week that negotiations with Washington were “meaningless”. The Putin-Pezeshkian meeting was one of several bilateral encounters scheduled on the sidelines of the summit, according to Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.
And in a call on Wednesday, Putin also told Pezeshkian that he was ready to help mediate in the Middle East war, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.
