St Petersburg: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi landed in Russia on Monday, poised for high-stakes discussions with President Vladimir Putin aimed at securing Moscow’s influential support in navigating the intensifying regional standoff.
This comes after Araghchi’s back-to-back engagements with mediator nations Pakistan and Oman to tackle the broadening Middle East crisis, even as direct peace initiatives between Tehran and Washington sit firmly on hold amid deep-seated disagreements, agencies reported.
While Russia and Iran share deep strategic ties — bolstered by years of military and economic cooperation — Moscow has maintained a measured distance on direct entanglement in fresh regional clashes, prioritizing resources for its continuing full-scale war in Ukraine now in its third year.
Tehran’s Regional Diplomacy Push
Araghchi’s travels occur as negotiations with the US hit a wall, with each side firmly rejecting the other’s core proposals on key flashpoints.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday cancelled a planned trip to Islamabad by top aides Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, dismissing prospective talks there as “sitting around talking about nothing.”
An initial US-Iran meeting hosted in Pakistan in mid-April ended without any breakthrough or agreed path forward.
In Pakistan on Saturday, Araghchi held detailed sessions with powerful military head Field Marshal Asim Munir, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar to explore mediation avenues.
He then traveled to Oman for focused bilateral talks, made a quick return to Islamabad, and departed for Russia, where the key Putin summit awaits in St. Petersburg.
Araghchi posted on X that his Oman discussions centred squarely on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway lying between Oman and Iran that carries about 20% of global oil trade.
The strait’s de facto shutdown amid the raging conflict has triggered huge interruptions in worldwide oil and gas flows, spiking energy prices and straining economies from Asia to Europe.
Persistent Efforts For US-Iran Dialogue
Iran’s Fars news agency reported, however, that behind-the-scenes work continues apace to lay groundwork for a second round of US-Iran talks, noting Tehran dispatched “written messages” to Washington through reliable mediator Pakistan.
Those messages laid out Iran’s firm red lines in detail, explicitly covering nuclear matters and the urgent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, US media outlet Axios reported on Sunday, citing a senior US official and two other sources with direct knowledge of the matter, that Iran sent a fresh proposal explicitly offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and bring the war to a close.
Axios indicated Tehran seeks to park nuclear talks for a later, more opportune phase once immediate ceasefires are secured.
Washington, for its part, continues to press Tehran to fully cease uranium enrichment activities, which it views as a clear pathway toward developing nuclear arms.
Tehran steadfastly maintains its nuclear programme serves exclusively peaceful purposes, such as energy production and medical research.
