Russia has agreed to help the Trump Administration hold talks with Iran on key issues, including Iran's nuclear program and its support for anti-American terrorist organizations in the Middle East, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the details.
Trump conveyed the request directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call in February, and senior representatives from the US administration discussed the issue with their Russian counterparts at a meeting held in Riyadh a few days later.
The White House has not yet responded to inquiries on the subject, and Russia and Iran have not issued an official statement either.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “Russia believes that the United States and Iran should resolve all issues through negotiations” and stressed that Moscow “is ready to do everything in its power to promote this.”
At a meeting in Riyadh on February 18, attended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the possibility of Moscow helping to promote dialogue between Washington and Tehran was discussed. Lavrov also briefed his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on the details of the talks in a meeting in Tehran later.
Since taking office six weeks ago, Trump has been working to restore relations with Russia after they were damaged by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As part of these efforts, he is holding direct talks with Putin in an attempt to end the war, and even spoke with him by phone on February 12.
Despite the positive signals from Moscow, it is unclear how much Tehran will be willing to cooperate. Senior Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have already expressed distrust in Trump after he withdrew in 2018 from the nuclear deal reached during the Obama Administration.
At the same time, Iran continues to enrich uranium to critical levels, and the International Atomic Energy Agency warned last week that Iran’s stockpile of fissile material has nearly doubled since Trump’s election.
Earlier, the Russian investigative site Insider Russia, which is associated with the opposition, published findings indicating that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, relations between the two countries have significantly expanded.
According to the investigation, Russia previously refrained from deepening its ties with Iran due to fears of damaging its relations with Israel. However, the war in Ukraine has led to a change in approach—Russia has begun to rely on Iran as a source for advanced weaponry.
