‘US attack unjustified’: Putin assures Iran as Foreign Minister arrives with Khamenei’s letter, says 'trying to help’
While hosting Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that there was no justification for the US bombing of his country and that Moscow was trying to help the Iranian people.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday said that the involvement of powers from outside the Middle East in the conflict with Iran was moving the world towards great danger.
While hosting Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi in Moscow, he said that there was no justification for the US bombing of his country and that Moscow was trying to help the Iranian people, a Reuters report said.
US dropped massive bunker-buster bombs on three Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, inserting itself into Israel's war, in an operation that raised urgent questions about what remained of Tehran’s nuclear program and how its weakened military might respond.
Russia says it stands ready to assist Iran
According to an AP report, Russia is ready to help Iran in various ways, depending on what Tehran requests, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.
“Everything depends on what Iran needs,” Peskov said in response to a question at a briefing. “We have offered our mediation efforts. This is concrete."
Peskov added that Russia has openly declared its stance on the Iran-Israel war, calling it an important form of support for Tehran.
“We have stated our position. This is also a very important manifestation, a form of support for the Iranian side,” he said.
He also noted that Iran has been a recurring subject in recent talks between Putin and US President Donald Trump.
“The topic of Iran itself was repeatedly discussed by the presidents during their recent conversations,” Peskov told reporters.
Why is Iranian Foreign Minister in Moscow?
Iran's supreme leader sent his foreign minister to Moscow on Monday to ask President Vladimir Putin for more help from Russia after the biggest US military action against the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution over the weekend.
Iranian Foreign Minister Aragchi was due to deliver a letter from Khamenei to Putin, seeking the latter's backing, a senior source told Reuters.
Iran has not been impressed with Russia's support so far, Iranian sources told Reuters, and the country wants Putin to do more to back it against Israel and the US. The sources did not elaborate on what assistance Tehran wanted.
The Kremlin said that Putin would receive Aragchi but did not say what would be discussed.
Aragchi was quoted by the state TASS news agency as saying that Iran and Russia were coordinating their positions on the current escalation in the Middle East.
Russia, a longstanding ally of Tehran, plays a role in Iran's nuclear negotiations with the West as a veto-wielding UN Security Council member and signatory to an earlier nuclear deal Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
But Putin, whose army is fighting a major war of attrition in Ukraine for the fourth year, has shown little appetite for a confrontation with the US over Iran just as Trump seeks to repair ties with Moscow.
(With inputs from agencies)