By Guy Faulconbridge and Parisa Hafezi
MOSCOW/DUBAI (Reuters) -Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei sent his foreign minister to Russia on Thursday with a letter for Russian President Vladimir Putin, aiming to shore up support from Moscow ahead of a second round of nuclear negotiations with the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran with bombing and extending tariffs to third countries that buy its oil if Tehran does not come to an agreement with Washington over its disputed nuclear programme. The United States has moved additional warplanes into the region.
The U.S. and Iran held talks in Oman last weekend that both sides described as positive and constructive. Ahead of a second round of talks set to take place in Rome this weekend, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Wednesday that Iran’s right to enrich uranium is not negotiable.
Russia, a longstanding ally of Tehran, plays a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the West as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and a signatory to an earlier nuclear deal Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
“Regarding the nuclear issue, we always had close consultations with our friends China and Russia. Now it is a good opportunity to do so with Russian officials,” Araqchi told state TV. He said he was conveying a letter to Putin that discussed regional and bilateral issues.
Western powers say Iran is refining uranium to a high degree of fissile purity beyond what is justifiable for a civilian energy programme and close to the level suitable for an atomic bomb. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says it has a right to a civilian nuclear programme.
Moscow has bought weapons from Iran for the war in Ukraine and signed a 20-year strategic partnership deal with Tehran earlier this year, although it did not include a mutual defence clause. The two countries were battlefield allies in Syria for years until their ally Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December.
Putin has kept on good terms with Khamenei as both Russia and Iran are cast as enemies by the West, but Moscow is keen not to trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
Russia has said that any military strike against Iran would be illegal and unacceptable. The Kremlin on Tuesday declined to comment when asked if Russia was ready to take control of Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium as part of a possible future nuclear deal between Iran and the United States.
(Reporting by Reuters in Moscow and DubaiEditing by Mark Trevelyan and Peter Graff)
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