Putin ‘offers’ to play key role between Trump and Iran as Moscow cosies up to US | World | News
Russia has offered to assist the United States in dealing with Iran over its nuclear programme and its use of proxies against Western allies. A senior Iranian official has said that Iran’s supreme national security council was contacted by the Kremlin to facilitate direct communications between the Trump administration and Tehran.
“Officials from the Kremlin contacted the supreme national security council and said Putin wants to mediate and he’s ready to facilitate direct talks between Iran and America,” an Iranian official said. But, the official reportedly added that the confrontation in the Oval Office on Friday between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky did little to incentivise Iran to engage in diplomacy with the US. “They said Trump wants to talk and is preferring it over war but, here, there is a big uncertainty around it after what happened in the White House last week”, he is reported to have told The Telegraph.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying, “Russia believes that the United States and Iran should resolve all problems through negotiations”. He added that Russia “is ready to do everything in its power to achieve this.”
If the US were to involve the Kremlin in similar talks with Iran, Vladimir Putin would further emerge from the international isolation he was plunged in three years ago following his country’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
The development comes with all eyes on the Trump administration. After rebuking President Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday, and this week pausing aid to Ukraine and slapping 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, the US President has been accused of cosying up to the West’s enemies.
Trump is reported to be keen on bringing an end to multiple regional conflicts within his first 100 days in office. Having proposed rebuilding Gaza, he has said he is determined to end the war in Ukraine. Now, he appears to be including engagement with Iran in his plans for reshaping geopolitics.
The bold steps Trump has taken on the global stage have started to bite domestically. Since the imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the markets have reacted unfavourably.
Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com said: “Wall Street tumbled off the back of the news, while the US Dollar declined as market participants began to contemplate the risks of a US recession.”
Worse, still, the US economy could be shrinking at its fastest rate since the Covid pandemic, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
US GDP could shrink by 2.8% in the first quarter of this year, despite a prediction a month ago that that the economy would grow by 4%.
