TEHRAN
\nRussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Iran on Monday, Russian media said, in his first visit since the outbreak of the Middle East war as Moscow seeks to play a mediating role. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on Sunday that the trip would focus on \u201cregional and international developments\u201d.
\nLavrov is scheduled to meet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and hold talks with his counterpart Abbas Araghchi, according to the Russian foreign ministry.
\nThe veteran diplomat has said Moscow\u2019s efforts are \u201caimed at preventing the return of a large-scale war\u201d, with talks stalled between Tehran and Washington. His visit comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin told Pezeshkian in early October that Moscow was prepared to contribute to mediation efforts.
\nRussia and Iran, two of the most heavily sanctioned nations in the world, maintain close ties. Their military and economic cooperation has only increased since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
\nThe Middle East war began in February with US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Despite a ceasefire in April, followed by a US-Iran memorandum of understanding in June, hostilities in and around the Strait of Hormuz have not stopped.
\nIran claims control over the strategic waterway \u2014 through which one-fifth of the world\u2019s hydrocarbons pass in normal times \u2014 and regularly targets vessels that cross without its authorisation. In response, Washington has been maintaining a naval counter-blockade on Iranian ports.
\nThe Russian foreign ministry said discussions during Lavrov\u2019s visit were expected to focus on \u201cways to resolve the acute international crisis triggered by the unlawful aggression of the US and Israel against Iran\u201d.
\nThe ministry said the war had been a blow to stability and security \u201cnot only in the near and Middle East, but also on a global scale\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TEHRAN Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Iran on Monday, Russian media said, in his first visit since the outbreak of the Middle East war as Moscow seeks to play a mediating role. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on Sunday that the trip would focus on \u201cregional and international developments\u201d. Lavrov is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":104575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104588,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104563\/revisions\/104588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}