Iran Seeks Deals with Russia and China To Build Coalition to Resist U.S.

Iran Seeks Deals with Russia and China To Build Coalition to Resist U.S.
      Iran Seeks Deals with Russia and China To Build Coalition to Resist U.S.

 

 

Iran is seeking to extend a 20-year deal with Russia at the same time that the Islamic Republic negotiates a quarter-century agreement with China, signaling a new push to establish an international coalition against U.S. economic and political pressure.

 

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif arrived Tuesday in Moscow for talks in which he sought the renewal of a two-decade agreement for cooperation between the two countries.

 

The contents of the pact were not made public but it follows a landmark deal involving oil and arms sales, as well as nuclear cooperation signed on March 12, 2001, by Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami.

 

Putin spoke with his contemporary Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani ahead of Zarif’s arrival in a conversation Thursday that covered the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Iran nuclear deal, the war in Syria and bilateral topics including “the implementation of large joint energy projects.”

 

The agreement, which Zarif said both sides “agreed to conclude,” comes about a week after the leak to various news outlets of an 18-page document purported to be the draft of a comprehensive deal with China.

 

This deal, the contents of which Iranian officials have said have yet to be finalized, included about $400 million of Chinese investment in Iran’s energy sector and infrastructure.

 

The interests of Tehran, Moscow and Beijing appear to be converging in a way that experts say could prove a challenge to the United States’ attempts to maintain dominance over international order.

 

“The three countries find themselves coming together for both strategic and pragmatic reasons,” Guy Burton, an associate professor at Official Vesalius College in Brussels, told Newsweek. “Strategically, they share a common aversion to a U.S.-led world order. Pragmatically, it makes sense to work with each other.”

 

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