February 26, 2021
Majlis Speaker Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf has carried a message from the Supreme Leader to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but Putin has refused to see Qalibaf.
Many in Tehran see Putin’s refusal to received Qalibaf as a snub to the Islamic Republic. But more likely it is nothing more than Putin’s overriding focus on avoiding any chance of exposure to the coronavirus.
According to an adviser to Qalibaf, Amir-Hussain Abdol-lahian, Iran’s Supreme Leader sent Qalibaf with a letter to Putin about the need to revive the nuclear deal.
Qalibaf traveled to Moscow to personally deliver the letter. According to Abdollahian, who published a note on the Supreme Leader’s website, Khamenei.ir, “This trip was timed for when there are new tenants in the White House and sends Iran’s allies the message that we will not be delayed any longer with White House games with respect to the nuclear deal.”
That signaled that the letter was another part of the Iranian effort to goose President Biden into lifting sanctions and rejoining the nuclear deal.
Abdollahian also addressed the domestic controversy over Qalibaf not personally meeting with Putin, writing that due to the urgency of the letter Putin wanted to immediately read it rather than wait for the mandated health protocols. After reports that Qalibaf was to personally meet with Putin, Iranian media outlets reported that, due to quarantine requirements, the planned meeting with Putin would not take place.
Qalibaf instead delivered the letter to his Russian counterpart. Abdollahian insisted that the meeting with Vyacheslav Volodin was done while Volodin was acting as Putin’s adviser and not as the head of Duma in an apparent effort to elevate the status of the meeting.
The fallout led to highly partisan gloating in Tehran, where supporters of Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif shared pictures of Zarif’s previous (pre-coronavirus) meeting with Putin. Qalibaf, a conservative politician widely expected to run for president this year, was perhaps looking to use this trip to elevate his stature.
Putin is a notable germo-phobe. Ever since the start of the coronavirus epidemic, he has quarantined himself at his dacha outside Moscow. He has reportedly not gone to the Kremlin in almost a year and meets with government officials over the Russian equivalent of Zoom. He meets face-to-face with others only after they have spent two weeks in quarantine near his dacha.
This is well-known. But Iran seemed to think that an Iranian official was so important to Russia that Putin would waive the quarantine requirement. And officials were stunned when Putin refused to do so. That speaks volumes about the Islamic Republic’s misunderstanding about where it stands in the Russian firmament.
After his visit to Moscow, Qalibaf tweeted, “The existence of a mighty Russia benefits Iran the same way the existence of a powerful Iran benefits Russia.”