John Adoyi, PBA Journalism Mentee
Russian President, Vladimir Putin has visited Iran where he held trilateral talks with the Iranian leaders, and president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.
This is the first trip of the Russian leader abroad since the country invaded Ukraine.
Their talks centred on issues of terrorism in Syria and also talks over the export of grain from Ukraine. The three leaders vowed to end terrorism in Syria.
During the talks, The Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei welcomed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saying “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.” The Guardian UK reported.
The Russian leader agreeing with the Ayatollah also said “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.”
The Iranian leader also asked countries to start doing away with the dollar during trade and start using their own currencies.
“The U.S. dollar should be gradually taken off global trade, and this can be done gradually.”
Russia and Iran also agreed to sign a long-term cooperation over $40bn worth of oil deals.
