Putin will host Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani for separate talks in Moscow on Tuesday, on the sidelines of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum summit, as the diplomatic push to head off a war between the United States and Iran gathers pace.
The movement has already begun. The Emir arrived in Moscow on Monday, landing at Vnukovo International Airport, where he was received by Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov and Qatar's ambassador. Pezeshkian left Tehran for Moscow the same day to take part in the summit and the talks.
The talks sit inside a bigger exchange between Moscow and Washington. Putin is asking President Trump to end the Iran war before it starts, and Trump is asking Putin to end the Ukraine war — each capital pressing the other to close out a war, while the leaders of Iran and Qatar come to Moscow to make their own cases in person.
Qatar carries weight in this because it has served before as a channel between Washington and Tehran, and the Emir's presence in Moscow puts one of the region's main go-betweens in the room a day before the talks. No detailed agenda for Tuesday's meetings has been published, and what comes out of them will be watched first in Washington.
📣 Join ProfiloPolitics on Telegram — breaking news first
Follow @profilopoliticsnews for every update on this story.