Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, signed a major cooperation agreement on Friday in the Kremlin, strengthening the alliance between the two countries driven by a desire to challenge the West.
The deal was the latest Russia has signed with a country at loggerheads with the West since Moscow invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, and represents an effort to boost its global standing ahead of the start of Trump’s second presidency.
Iran and Russia are heavily sanctioned by the West, with trade and finance at the forefront of the deal signed on Friday.
The published agreement includes military issues and specifies that in the event of an attack on Iran or Russia, the signatories of the agreement will not provide any military or other assistance to the aggressor “that would facilitate the continuation of violence.”
But unlike agreements Moscow has signed with other allies, the deal with Iran stops short of including a defense clause, according to Iran’s ambassador to Moscow.
“The independence and security of our country, as well as independence, is very important,” Kazem Jalali, told IRNA, the Iranian news agency, according to TASS. “We are not interested in joining any bloc.”
Speaking in the Kremlin before the meeting, Mr. Putin called the visit of Mr. Pezeshkian as “very important” and said that the signed agreement is “big, fundamental, comprehensive.”
Iranian leaders characterized the trip as more than just a state visit, saying it represented a strategic shift.
“This agreement is not only an important development that strengthens our bilateral relations,” wrote Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on the Telegram social network. He added, “This is not just a political agreement, but a map of the future.”
Dmitry S. Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said the timing of the signing of the agreement was not intended to divert attention from Mr.
Since the invasion of Ukraine almost three years ago, Moscow and Tehran have been getting closer. Iran has sent short-range missiles and drones to Russia, according to US and European officials, to help the Kremlin’s war effort. Iran denies supplying weapons to Moscow.
The Kremlin has provided some diplomatic support to Tehran, but has had to balance relations and maintain relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of which oppose Iran. Both Moscow and Tehran have recently faced a major crisis in the region with the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.
Since the beginning of the war, Russia has been working to counter what it sees as an aggressive Western power and empire, led by the United States, by creating and formalizing a series of agreements.
In June, Russia signed a cooperation agreement with North Korea, and in December, a security agreement with Belarus legalized the deployment of Russian strategic nuclear weapons to that country. Both agreements included a safeguard clause.
Russia also leads what is known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which includes Belarus and several other former Soviet states including Armenia in the Caucasus, and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Central Asia.
Intended as a counterweight to NATO, the organization is based on the principle that an attack by one member should be considered an attack by all. The alliance was challenged recently when Armenia successfully suspended its membership.
For its part, Iran faces many challenges at home and in the region, with its allies weakened and its economy stagnant due to sanctions. The return of Mr. Trump as US president will likely bring more pressure and Washington’s efforts to isolate Iran.
Aside from security issues, Russia has been working with Iran and other countries to develop an alternative to the Western-led Swift, a global messaging service that connects more than 11,000 financial institutions and allows them to alert each other about pending transactions.
Moscow hopes to build a railway through Iran that will connect Russia directly to the ports of the Persian Gulf. Mr. Araghchi said the agreement signed on Friday will allow Iran to act as a conduit for Russian gas through its pipeline network, bringing gas from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf coast. It means that Iran is “becoming a major hub for gas exports.”
Mr. Jalali, the Russian ambassador, told Iranian media that the leaders of Russia and Iran see that the old agreement between the two countries is outdated and does not reflect the realities of the world and regional order.
The new agreement, he said, “considers all aspects of our bilateral relations including our political stance. How we look at power and how we move forward together.”
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