November 10, 2017
Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to Tehran last week for a summit with Iranian President Hassan Rohani and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. A number of MoUs related to business and trade were signed, but nothing that seemed to warrant a summit.
Many analysts assumed Putin was talking with Rohani about Syria, but no announcements were made about Syria—or any other regional political issue.
Rohani and Putin last met 15 months ago when they went to Baku to meet with Aliyev for another trilateral summit. This week’s gathering may have been yet another pro forma meeting to try to convey close cooperation. Putin was in Tehran less than a day.
Putin had the honor of an audience with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi. Iranian state TV said Khamenehi advised Putin that Iran and Russia must work more closely to isolate the United States. The newscast didn’t say how Putin responded.
During the visit, the National Iranian Oil Co. and Russia’s Rosneft oil producer agreed to work on “strategic” projects that together could be worth as much as $30 billion. But the signed agreement was not a contract, just a memorandum of understanding (MoU), which involved no commitment by either party.
Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said the MoU was the first step leading to Rosneft developing several Iranian oil projects in the coming years that would boost Iranian production by 1.1 million barrels a day or 30 percent higher than current output.