Pezeshkian to meet Putin in Moscow as Iran's army chief vows to keep US warships out of the Gulf

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian will travel to Moscow next week to meet Vladimir Putin, Iranian media said on Saturday, as Tehran’s top general warned that American warships would never be allowed back into the Gulf.

Kazem Jalali, Iran’s ambassador to Russia, told the Tasnim news agency that “the Iranian president will visit Moscow to attend the summit of gas-exporting countries”, due on Tuesday, 27 October. He said the two leaders would discuss economic cooperation and “questions of geopolitics”. Jalali said the two countries’ “active diplomacy” was helping build a “new architecture of international relations”.

The trip follows a visit to Tehran this week by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, his first since the war in the Gulf began. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Friday that talks between the two presidents would take place next week and described cooperation between the two countries as closer than ever. Putin said in early October that Russia was ready to help mediate an end to the war.

‘Take that dream to his grave’

The diplomacy runs alongside harder words. Major General Ali Abdollahi, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, said on state television that US military ships would not be allowed into the Persian Gulf “under any circumstances”. Addressing President Donald Trump, he said the American leader would “take that dream to his grave”. He also dismissed Trump’s claims that US strikes had destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Abdollahi spoke as the United States and Israel threaten to renew attacks on Iran. Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey, was reported to have said that Washington could “absolutely” strike Iran once it had been weakened. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains dangerous: earlier this week seven oil tankers caught fire or were damaged after being hit by Iran or by mines.

Neighbours urge restraint

On Friday, foreign ministers from Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, meeting in Istanbul with their counterparts from France, Germany, Britain and Italy, backed the understanding between Iran and the US brokered in Islamabad and called for the “swift and full resumption of safe, secure and unimpeded passage” through Hormuz.

“Military intervention in Iran is by no means a solution. No one supports this at the moment,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said after the meeting. Italy’s Antonio Tajani warned that fighting in the Gulf could resume after next month’s US elections.

What happens next

Pezeshkian is due in Moscow on Tuesday for the summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, where the meeting with Putin is expected on the sidelines. Russia and Iran are among the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, and the two have grown closer since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. US-Iran negotiations have been stalled for months.