Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to Moscow on Monday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin as negotiations between Tehran and Washington remain stalled.
The purpose of his visit to Russia was to “discuss developments in the war and review the latest situation,” Araghchi said after arriving in St. Petersburg.
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“I am confident that these consultations and coordination between the two countries in this regard will be of particular importance,” he added.
While Russia is a key ally of Iran, Putin has stayed out of the conflict apart from hosting Araghchi.
The Iranian diplomat recently traveled to Pakistan and Oman, two countries that have mediated peace talks between the United States and Iran. He was expected to engage in a second round of talks in Islamabad, but President Donald Trump called off the meeting on Saturday because it likely wouldn’t result in a deal.
Instead of sending Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner on an 18-hour flight to the Pakistani capital, Trump pressured Iranian negotiators to pick up the phone and call his administration.
“By the time they get there, it’s hours and hours and hours of flying,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday. “I said, ‘We’re not doing this anymore. We have all the cards.’ If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us.”
The White House is holding an Iran-focused meeting in the Situation Room on Monday, Axios reported.
The meeting comes as Iran proposed its own peace plan that allows both sides to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but the proposal notably delays negotiations on a nuclear deal. Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons was one of Trump’s primary reasons for starting the war.
The U.S. likely won’t take Iran’s proposal seriously, and it remains to be seen where the conflict goes from here.
Trump wants to maintain the U.S. Navy blockade on Iran’s oil exports in the Strait of Hormuz until the country’s oil infrastructure potentially explodes. Speaking with Fox News on Sunday, the president warned the Iranians “only have about three days left before that happens.” Tehran is producing far more oil than it can store and, therefore, can’t export it due to the blockade.
The Iranian government threatened to resume airstrikes on oil facilities in the Middle East if its oil lines are “damaged as a result of the blockade.”
WAR IN IRAN GOES FROM TEST OF WILLS, TO A BATTLE OF WON’TS
Upon arriving in Russia, Araghchi blamed the Trump administration’s “excessive demands” and “incorrect approaches” for causing the stalemate in negotiations.
Before Araghchi met with Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “the importance of this conversation is difficult to overestimate in terms of how the situation around Iran and in the Middle East is developing.”
