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Moscow –
The Kremlin said that Russian President Vladimir Putin called on all parties in the Middle East on Tuesday to refrain from any action that would lead to a new confrontation that would have disastrous consequences for the region.
Putin, who has strengthened his country’s relations with Iran since the Ukraine war in 2022, spoke with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi by phone, and they discussed what the Kremlin described as “retaliatory measures taken by Iran.”
In his first public comment on the recent Iranian attack on Israel, Putin said: The root cause of the current instability in the Middle East is the failure to resolve the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel.
The Kremlin said: “Vladimir Putin expressed his hope that all parties would show restraint and prevent a new round of confrontations that would have disastrous consequences for the entire region.”
He added: “Ibrahim Raisi indicated that Iran’s actions were forced and limited in nature, and at the same time he stressed Tehran’s lack of interest in escalating tensions.” The Kremlin said about the phone call with Raisi, “The two sides confirmed that the root cause of the current events in the Middle East is the failure to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”
He added: “In this regard, it was emphasized that the principle of Russia and Iran is to immediately cease fire in the Gaza Strip, alleviate the difficult humanitarian situation, and create conditions for a political and diplomatic settlement of the crisis.”
Tehran gave a slightly different reading of the call, as official media quoted Raisi as saying that Iran will respond to any action targeting his country’s interests in a more severe, broader, and more painful manner.
Russia has previously rebuked the West several times for ignoring the necessity of establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.
Putin, who visited Khamenei in 2022, congratulated Raisi and all Muslims on Eid al-Fitr.
Senior American military leaders say that the growing partnerships between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea pose one of the most serious challenges facing the United States in the past four decades.
Iran supplied Russia with a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, and drones were used by Moscow in Ukraine.
