Iranian president voices Tehran’s support for Russia’s national sovereignty
In a phone call with his Russian counterpart, the Iranian president expressed Tehran’s support for Russia’s national sovereignty, following the aborted mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group.
According to Deputy Chief of Staff for Political Affairs Mohammad Jamshidi, Ebrahim Raeisi and Vladimir Putin discussed the Friday mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The Kremlin also confirmed the phone call between Raeisi and Putin and said, “The Iranian president expressed full support for the Russian leadership in connection with the June 24 events.”
According to Jamshidi, Putin briefed Raeisi on the recent developments in his country and emphasized that the events failed to challenge Russia’s national sovereignty.
Mutiny
A feud between Wagner group leader Prigozhin and Russia’s military brass that has festered throughout the war erupted into a mutiny that saw the mercenaries leave Ukraine to seize a military headquarters in a southern Russian city and roll seemingly unopposed for hundreds of miles toward Moscow, before turning around after less than 24 hours on Saturday.
The Kremlin said it had made a deal that Prigozhin will move to Belarus and not be prosecuted, along with his soldiers.
Tensions in Caucasus region
The presidents of Iran and Russia also underlined that the presence of foreign forces in the Caucasus region is a threat to all countries in the region, calling for cooperation between the countries to resolve their problems, Jamshidi said.
The Iranian president also held a separate phone conversation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Raeisi welcomed peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, saying that any change in the geopolitics of the region is detrimental to the security of the Caucasus.
Baku and Yerevan are locked in a decades-long territorial dispute over Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh, over which they have fought two wars.