In Iran Tuesday, Putin Has Grain, Syria On Agenda
President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Tehran Tuesday seems set by the Kremlin to emphasize Russia’s continuing role in the Middle East despite the Ukraine crisis.
President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Tehran Tuesday seems set by the Kremlin to emphasize Russia’s continuing role in the Middle East despite the Ukraine crisis.
Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy advisor to the Russian president, told reporters in Moscow Monday that a planned meeting with Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was “very important” and would reflect a “trusting dialogue…on the most important issues on the bilateral and international agenda.”
Putin is also expected to meet in Tehran with visiting Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, partly to follow up trilateral discussions with Ukraine over establishing a corridor through Turkey for the export of Ukrainian grain, a move that may be soon endorsed by the United Nations. At the same time, Moscow is well aware that its own grain exports are a potential sweetener, with Dmitry Patrushev suggesting in June Russia would send supplies to “countries that are friendly to us”.
While Erdogan, despite sending arms to Ukraine, has acted as a mediator between the warring neighbors, he also wants to liaise with both Russia and Iran over Syria, where Ankara is considering stepping up an armed intervention, aimed partly in support of Syrian rebels and partly against Kurdish forces allied with Kurdish rebels in Turkey. Iran opposes the Turkish presence, which is tolerated by both Russia and the US.
While Putin has left Russia only once since the Ukraine crisis erupted in February – travelling in June to Tajikistan and for the Sixth Caspian Summit in Turkmenistan – his trip to Iran is seen as an important chance to assert Russia’s continuing role in the Middle East immediately after the visit of United States President Joe Biden to Israel and Saudi Arabia, which concluded Saturday evening after Biden told the summit of nine Arab states he would not leave in the Middle East “a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran.”
Moscow’s regional leverage
Russia wants to maintain leverage gained from years of nuanced military and diplomatic regional efforts – including its 2015 military onslaught in Syria that tipped war in favor of President Bashar al-Assad, its intelligence sharing and political ties with Israel, its coordination with Saudi Arabia of global oil supplies through Opec+, and its diplomatic cooperation with Iran.
The Iran-Russia relationship has been well discussed in both Tehran, where some politicians regularly criticize Moscow’s continuing role in Iran’s nuclear talks with world powers, and in Washington. US officials have lately alleged that Russian officers visited Iran in June and July to look into possibilities for deploying Iranian-made attack drones for the Ukraine war. President Ebrahim Raisi met Putin in Moscow in January, and again at the Caspian Summit in June, when the Iranian president joined the leaders of Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan, and expressed a desire to build economic ties.
But many analysts argue that Russia and Iran are far from partners, whether in arms or business. Bilateral trade rose to $4 billion in 2021, but this is far less that, for example, Russia’s trade with Turkey at $33 billion, while Moscow’s exports to Iran are mainly foodstuffs, which are less vulnerable to US third-party sanctions than other sectors.
And while Tehran has been benefiting from rising oil prices, its sales to China, which make up most of its exports dues to US sanctions, have been hampered by Moscow selling to Beijing at a discount after being shut out of much of western Europe due to the Ukraine invasion.
A woman who was arrested because of an acrimonious dispute with a hijab enforcer in a city bus was identified as Sepideh Rashno, an educated person with a good public profile, Iran International has learned.
Rashno – a 28-year-old artist, writer and editor – was arrested on Saturday evening, July 16, after a video of her quarrel with a woman enforcing hijab rules – identified as Rayeheh Rabi’i -- went viral.
In the video Rabi’i, who was fully covered by a long, black ‘chador’ – which is typical of the supporters of the Islamic Republic – is seen shouting at Rashno who had unveiled in the transit bus. The quarrel became so frantic that other passengers intervened and kicked the hijab enforcer out of the bus.
Rabi’i was also recording the incident and threatening the hijab-protester to send it to the Revolutionary Guards. There are unconfirmed reports on social media that Rabi’i’s father is a member of the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij paramilitary force and was involved in the crackdown of popular protests in 2009.
Some government officials, including the head of the Islamic Development Organization, have praised Rabi’i and called on people to confront women who unveil in public.
IRGC affiliated Fars news broke the news which could frighten people whose support for anti-hijab protests are growing, adding that several other anti-hijab activists had also been arrested since Iranian women launched a campaign against the compulsory Islamic dress code on July 12.
In another video released this week, a man started berating a few teenage girls who had removed their hijab at a subway station in Tehran, but other people came to help and sent the angry man away. The number of videos of confrontations between anti-hijab protesters and hijab enforcers are growing in social media.
In a statement released on Sunday, Iran’s exiled queen Farah Pahlavi condemned the widespread arrests of civil and human rights activists in Iran, particularly the anti-hijab activists.
Denouncing the violent behavior of the morality – or hijab – police while arresting the protesters, she said that “not a day goes by without news and images of attacks on women and violation of their rights, disturbing the souls of noble Iranians, but the news of the civil struggle of women and men of my land against any kind of coercion and discrimination is a source of pride and honor.”
Iranians deserve peaceful coexistence no matter their beliefs, clothing or lifestyle as it was like this before the Islamic Revolution and will become so thanks to people, she said.
She noted that the will and civil courage of Iranian men and women is greater and stronger “than the oppressors’ power.”
On July 12, following a call by women’s rights activists for civil disobedience with the hashtag of ‘No2Hijab’ social media exploded with dozens of videos and photos of women unveiling in public.
Iran has started arresting women who participated in the nationwide campaign against the compulsory Islamic dress code this week.
For the past few weeks, the government has increased harassment of women for their insufficient hijab and many have been detained by special police patrols.
Iranian media have often perceived Levan Dzhagaryan's (Jagarian) controversial behavior as intervention in Iran's internal affairs or as flat insults although he does not seem to be bothered by the accusations. On social media, however, and recently in Tehran media Iranians have been demanding an answer to the ambassador's outrageous and provocative remarks.
Khabar Online, a moderate conservative news outlet in Tehran asked on Sunday, July 17, "Where are the government and the foreign ministry" after Dzhagariantold Sharq newspaper in Tehran the day before that "We have always been on Iran's side, but the West want to bring their absurd values such as homosexuality and other dirty things to Iran but we object to that!"
Many Iranians on social media reminded the ambassador that Russia is a large producer of pornography in the world.
The ambassador also said in the same interview: "There are things that I don’t want to reveal, but what is clear is that Iran owes us hundreds of millions of euros and doesn’t pay." Some Iranians on social media perceived this as a prelude to plundering Iran's resources as the alleged debt is about decades of Russia's partnership with the Islamic Republic in constructing the Bushehr nuclear power plant that contributes little to Iran’s electricity.
In an earlier remark, Dzhagaryan had said that "hijab and the lack of alcoholic drinks in Iran prevent Russian tourists from coming to Iran." His remarks which contained criticism of the Islamic Republic's underlying values, was harshly criticized by former Iranian lawmaker Ali Motahari.
At the same time, Motahari and many other Iranians on social media criticized the Raisi administration's silence in the face of Dzhagaryan's comments. The ambassador's earlier remarks particularly angered Iranian journalists when he told them not to call Russia's war against Ukraine an "invasion." The journalists charged that the Raisi administration does not object to Dzhagaryan because it does not want to annoy Russia which is Tehran's close ally.
In another development, when President Biden and the first lady congratulated Iranians on Nowruz, Dzhagarayan dismissed Biden's gesture as "hypocrisy" and reminded that Biden has imposed sanctions on Iran.
These and several other remarks and actions by the ambassador have most certainly not been constructive while at a higher level, Iran and Russia do a lot to pretend to be allies against the United States and Europe.
The Islamic Republic has gone out of its way to give Russians the authority to intervene during Iran's negotiations with the West to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.
Although Putin's visit to Tehran is officially within the frameworks of the Astana Peace Process for Syria, the initiative is long dead and Putin, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran's Khamenei are part of the problem in the Syrian civil war rather than being able to offer solutions.
Putin is most likely visiting Iran to personally convey his messages to Khamenei who never travels abroad and have a meeting with Erdogan to sort out problems about seizing Russian food cargos going through the Bosporus, based on arrangements with NATO.
Meanwhile, Eurasia expert Mahmoud Shouri told reporters in Tehran that Cold War geopolitical demarcations are being revived. He said the meeting in Tehran could be part of the initiatives to forge new alliances. He added in view of the fact that Biden did not gain much during his regional tour, Russia must be thinking of leaving the void Washington has left behind in the region.
What Khamenei can get out of the meeting is pretending that new alliances in the Middle East have not totally isolated him as he can at least host Putin.