EDITOR’S PICK
EKO HOT BLOG reports that Russian President, Vladimir Putin has been endorsed by the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for the invasion of Ukraine and its response to Nato.
Putin ended his first major summit outside Russia since the invasion of Ukraine with an endorsement from Iran.
Khamenei told Putin: “War is a harsh and difficult issue, and Iran is not at all pleased that ordinary people suffer from it, but in the case of Ukraine if you had not taken the initiative, the other side would have caused the war with its own initiative.
“If the road is open to Nato, it knows no boundaries and if it was not stopped in Ukraine they would start the same war some time later under the pretext of Crimea.”
He said Russia and Iran needed to work together gradually to reduce the power of the dollar.
Putin echoed Iran’s judgment that he had no choice but to invade, saying: “No one is in favour of war, and the loss of ordinary people’s lives is a great tragedy, but the behaviour of the west made us have no choice but to react. Some European countries said ‘We were against Ukraine’s membership in Nato, but we agreed under American pressure,’ which shows their lack of independence.”
Russia and Iran also agreed to sign a long-term memorandum of understanding to cooperate over $40bn (£33bn) worth of oil contracts.
However, the atmosphere of cordial consensus that Russia and Iran displayed was not shared by Erdoğan when it came to his ambitions to intervene in northern Syria.
FURTHER READING:
The Turkish president, potentially exploiting Putin’s distractions in Ukraine, has been preparing a fresh military incursion into northern Syria in a bid to construct a buffer zone 30km south of the Turkish-Syrian border.
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