February 18, 2022
by Warren L. Nelson
President Raisi flew to Moscow for a summit with Russian President Vladi-mir Putin this month, but appears to have emerged empty handed.
Normally, such trips are preceded by private talks that set up agreements that can be announced with great fanfare at the end of the visit, even if what’s announced is short on substance. But there was no fanfare and no announcements when Raisi left Moscow after two days, January 19 and 20.
Iranian officials were left trying to invent elements of importance. For example, they pointed out that the presidents met for three hours, which is far more than usual for such summits, and said that showed how important the meeting was and how much Putin cared about dealing with Raisi. But two weeks later, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban came to Moscow and had a five-hour meeting with Putin.
Many people pointed to the immense table that separated Putin and Raisi and the fact that the two men did not even shake hands before settling in. Iranian officials said that was because of concerns about Covid-19.
The long table has been used at several recent tete-a-tetes at the Kremlin, so it wasn’t any unique sleight for Raisi.
The Fars news agency tried to paint a picture of Raisi being in command of the meeting while Putin didn’t know what he was doing. Fars ran a seven-minute video commentary by Mohammad Lesani in which he said, “Those who have seen the 21-minute footage released by Ria Novosti know how Putin looked stressed during the meeting, tidying his tie twice, moving his legs and shoulders. Why? Because he feels this is a very important political meeting that is vital for his country.”
In the middle of the meeting, Raisi took a break for noon prayers. His staff unfurled a prayer rug and brought in photographers to show Raisi with his palms raised in prayer. The regime billed this as a major development—an Iranian president at prayer in the Kremlin, a fortress described as better known as a command center for atheism—although Russian Orthodox priests have appeared regularly in the Kremlin in the three decades since the fall of the Soviet Union.
But there was no announcement of any Russian arms sales to Iran, which many had been expecting. The talk in Tehran has been that Iran wants to buy Russia’s top-of-the-line Su-35 fighters, its S-400 air defense missile system, a more advanced system than the S-300s Iran bought several years ago, and possibly some T-90 tanks.
The Tasnim news agency said Oil Minister Javad Oji signed several contracts with Russian oil firms to develop Iranian oil fields. However, weeks have passed and no one has identified the oilfields or the Russian firms or the amount of money involved in the supposed contracts. Oji himself tweeted that he had signed “important documents,” but did not say contracts.
Raisi said, “During this trip, it was decided to activate the north-south corridor.” But this transportation corridor has been underway for years and was never deactivated.
Raisi said that bilateral trade, currently insignificant at about $4 billion annually, would be boosted to $10 billion. But the countries have talked for years about a major increase in trade with little happening. In fact, Russia recently rejected several shipments of food items from Iran after saying they were contaminated.
The 20-year strategic cooperation agreement that Iran signed with Russia in 2020 has now expired. No extension was signed at the meeting. Raisi said he left Putin with an Iranian outline of what it would like to see in a new 20-year agreement. Putin said the Russians would review that proposal.
Finance Minister Ehsan Khanduzi said the two countries had agreed to expedite implementation of a $5 billion credit line. But that credit line was approved by Russia years ago. Khanduzi didn’t explain why nothing had been done with it over the intervening years.
Raisi was invited to address the Russian Duma, which is a rare honor accorded foreign visitors. Half of that speech was a screed against the United States. Raisi said very little about relations with Russia.
Javan daily, which is close to the Pasdaran, said the trip stands in stark contrast to the Rohani Administration, which, rather than look east to solve Iran’s economic problems, had looked west for resolving Iran’s problems.
The article also said, “Despite public opinion, Iran-Russia ties are not strategic.” Other than “general security and military” interests, Iran and Russia have no joint interests. To show the disparity, the article noted that Turkish-Russian trade is at a much higher volume than Iranian-Russian trade despite Iran and Russia being aligned geopolitically on a number of regional disputes and Turkey and Russia often working against one another’s interests.
It did not point out that Russia has always maintained cordial relations with Israel.
Nicole Grajewski, a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, told Al Jazeera, “The visit seems more ceremonial than a substantive turning point in bilateral relations.” She singled out the fact that the Strategic Cooperation Agreement was not renewed, speculating that Iran was making too many demands of the Russians.
Samuel Ramani, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in Britain, said Russia might not be eager to sell arms to Iran, despite the normal assumption that it is eager.
Ramani told Al Jazeera, “Russia’s overall policy in the Middle East is to be friends with all, allies of none, enemies of none—so selling arms to Iran might disrupt its efforts to balance closer ties with Israel and the UAE, in particular, as tensions are heightened between these countries and Tehran right now and Saudi Arabia.”