MOSCOW — Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met in Moscow on Tuesday on the sidelines of a summit of the world’s biggest gas exporters hosted by President Vladimir Putin, as the region’s diplomacy over Iran moved through a second capital in two days.
The two leaders discussed expanding bilateral relations and strengthening cooperation in the energy sector, according to a readout from the Iranian presidency reported by Iran’s state media. Energy cooperation, economic and trade exchanges, and stronger coordination among gas-exporting countries were among the main topics, the readout said, and both sides called for broader political and economic ties between the two neighbours.
Qatar’s state news agency had not published its own account of the meeting in the reports available on Tuesday morning, and no joint statement was issued. Qatar has acted as a go-between in the region’s diplomacy over Iran: Qatari mediators met Iranian officials in Tehran on Sunday, a day before Saudi, Pakistani and Turkish security chiefs sat down with Iran’s leaders in the Iranian capital.
A summit of gas powers
The meeting came during the eighth summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), which Putin is hosting in Moscow. The forum’s member countries hold around 70 percent of the world’s proven natural gas reserves. It is the first GECF summit held in Moscow since 2013, and this year marks 25 years of cooperation within the forum.
Leaders and senior officials from member and observer countries — including Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo, Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the chairman of Libya’s Presidential Council, Mohamed al-Menfi, and Venezuela’s vice-president for the economy, Calixto Ortega Sánchez — attended to discuss global gas markets, energy security and supplies. A draft Moscow Declaration was on the summit’s agenda, and Putin was scheduled to deliver the opening address. The forum’s 28th ministerial meeting took place on Monday, attended by Iran’s acting oil minister, Hamid Bovard.
Putin’s own bilaterals
Putin was to hold separate meetings with Pezeshkian and with the Emir after the summit, the Kremlin said, along with bilaterals with the leaders of Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea and Libya. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov confirmed the schedule to reporters on Monday, according to Reuters.
Iranian state media said the Pezeshkian-Putin talks would review political and economic cooperation and progress in implementing the comprehensive strategic treaty the two countries signed in January 2025. Pezeshkian was also scheduled to address the summit, presenting Iran’s proposals on cooperation among energy-rich nations.
Before leaving Tehran on Monday, Pezeshkian said Iran would use its position in the forum to help improve the international energy market. He said that what he called United States and Israeli aggression against Iran earlier this year, and continued Western support for Israel, had made regional energy transit routes insecure — a claim he said the summit’s leaders would discuss. Iran’s framing is its own: the United States and Israel have said their actions respond to Iran’s nuclear programme and its regional allies.
Why the Moscow stop matters
The summit puts the leaders of two of the region’s central players — Iran, and the Qatar that has mediated between Tehran and Washington — in the same room as Russia’s president at a moment when the United States and Iran have both drawn up plans to restart their wider war, according to Reuters, and when Monday’s talks in Tehran produced no announced settlement.
The Moscow gathering also opens a heavy diplomatic week for the Kremlin: on Wednesday and Thursday, Putin co-chairs the third Russia-Africa Summit, which the Kremlin says 48 African countries have confirmed they will attend.
What to watch is what, if anything, is announced after Putin’s two bilaterals — and whether the summit’s Moscow Declaration says anything about the security of energy transit routes, the issue Pezeshkian carried to Moscow with him. This story will be updated as the meetings conclude.
Sources: Iranian presidency readout via IRNA and Press TV; Kremlin remarks reported by Reuters; Gas Exporting Countries Forum summit programme and coverage.
