#Iran #risks #dependent #Russia
The United States on Wednesday warned Iran it risks dependence on an isolated Russia after welcoming President Vladimir Putin, despite the CIA chief acknowledging the two nations have uneasy ties.
Putin visited Tehran on Tuesday for a tripartite summit with his counterparts from Iran and Turkey, which was nominally about conflict-torn Syria
On the sidelines of the summit, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for “long-term cooperation” with Russia, despite Tehran’s previous attempt to demonstrate its neutrality by voting in a key UN vote condemning Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine contained.
“Iran has now joined forces with a small number of countries that wore this veil of neutrality, only to end up supporting President Putin in his war against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. to reporters.
The United States recently released intelligence information allegedly showing that Russian delegations are visiting Iran to assess combat drones as they seek to strengthen their arsenal against Western weapons in Ukraine.
But Price signaled that Iran’s return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal — backed by President Joe Biden after his predecessor Donald Trump destroyed it — would begin a new “economic relationship with other countries around the world.”
Negotiations have stalled in part because of Iranian demands that Biden overturn Trump’s designation of the powerful Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group.
Despite US criticism of the Iran summit, CIA chief Bill Burns — who helped broker the Iran deal as a diplomat and served as ambassador to Moscow — said Iran and Russia are reaching out to each other first and foremost because they both “ looking for a break are out of “political isolation” and are under sanctions.
“But when they need each other, they don’t really trust each other in the sense that they’re energy rivals and historical competitors,” Burns said at the Aspen Security Forum.
Moscow has a long history of intervention in Iran, occupying the important northern city of Tabriz in the early 20th century and joining Britain in a 1941 invasion of the country.
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