By Guy Faulconbridge and Marina Bobrova<\/p>\n
MOSCOW, March 21 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Iranian leaders on Nowruz and said Moscow remained a \u200cloyal friend and reliable partner to Tehran, the Kremlin said \u200con Saturday.<\/p>\n
The extent of Moscow’s support for Iran, though, is in dispute. Some Iranian sources have \u200bsaid that they have had little real help from Moscow in the biggest crisis for Iran since the U.S.-backed Shah was toppled in the 1979 revolution.<\/p>\n
Putin sent congratulations to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei and Iranian President Masoud \u200cPezeshkian on the Iranian new \u2060year, the Kremlin said.<\/p>\n
“Vladimir Putin wished the Iranian people to overcome the harsh trials with dignity and stressed that in \u2060this difficult time Moscow remains a loyal friend and reliable partner of Tehran,” the Kremlin said.<\/p>\n
Russia says the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran have thrust \u200bthe entire \u200bMiddle East into the abyss and \u200btriggered a major global energy \u200ccrisis, while Putin condemned the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “cynical” murder.<\/p>\n
Politico reported that Moscow proposed a quid pro quo to Washington: the Kremlin would stop sharing intelligence with Iran if Washington ceased supplying Ukraine with intelligence about Russia, but the United States rejected the idea. The \u200cKremlin has dismissed the report as fake.<\/p>\n
Russia \u200bwas deprived of an ally when the \u200bUnited States toppled Venezuelan leader \u200bNicolas Maduro, though Moscow has benefited from the high oil \u200cprices triggered by the U.S. and \u200bIsraeli attacks on \u200bIran, a strategic partner.<\/p>\n
The published strategic partnership does not contain a mutual defence clause, and Russia has repeatedly said that it does not \u200bwant Iran to develop \u200can atomic bomb, a step that Moscow fears would trigger a \u200bnuclear arms race across the Middle East.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and \u200bMarina Bobrova; editing by Kirsten Donovan)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Guy Faulconbridge and Marina Bobrova MOSCOW, March 21 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Iranian leaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[89,8559,34,2155,55,69,14121,1976],"class_list":{"0":"post-30014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tehran","8":"tag-ayatollah-ali-khamenei","9":"tag-ayatollah-mojtaba-khamenei","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-moscow","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-tehran","14":"tag-the-kremlin","15":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116268710096395793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}