Putin Hosts Iran's Pezeshkian and Qatar's Emir in Moscow as Gas Summit Wraps

President Vladimir Putin held separate talks in Moscow on Tuesday with Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, after delegations from the three countries took part in the eighth summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. The meetings brought together leaders of three of the world's largest natural-gas exporters at a moment when energy markets remain unsettled by the war between Iran and a US-Israeli coalition that began in late February.

The Kremlin described the sit-downs as an extension of existing channels with both countries rather than a one-off tied solely to the gas forum, according to Dawn's report on the Kremlin's announcement. Qatar's emir flew into the Russian capital on Monday evening, a trip confirmed in a dispatch from the state-run Qatar News Agency. Iranian officials said their agenda included joint gas-field development and gas-swap arrangements, in which one country exports gas on another's behalf through connected pipeline networks.

Qatar's presence carries added weight because Doha has also been mediating between Iran and the United States as the two sides try, so far without success, to restart talks aimed at ending the war. Iranian officials told Al Jazeera's live coverage of the conflict on Tuesday that Washington was "not serious" about negotiations.

State media in Tehran reported that Pezeshkian and the emir held their own separate discussions on expanding political, economic and energy cooperation between Iran and Qatar, according to Turkey's Anadolu Agency. Neither the Kremlin nor Iranian officials announced new agreements arising from the Putin meetings themselves.

A rare Moscow gathering

The Gas Exporting Countries Forum, whose roughly twenty members hold a large share of the world's proven natural-gas reserves, convenes a leaders' summit every few years, usually as a venue for bilateral meetings on the margins. This is the first time Moscow has hosted since Russian pipeline exports to Europe collapsed after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a shift that has pushed the Kremlin to court buyers in Asia and the Middle East instead. For Iran, which has struggled to develop its own gas fields under years of sanctions, closer cooperation with Qatar, holder of the world's third-largest gas reserves, carries practical weight beyond the diplomatic optics of a Kremlin photo opportunity.