MOSCOW: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in Moscow on Friday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the signing of a strategic partnership treaty between the two countries, Russia’s TASS state news agency reported.

Pezeshkian, on his first Kremlin visit since winning the presidency last July after the death in a helicopter crash of his predecessor, is due to hold talks with Putin focusing on bilateral ties and international issues before signing the treaty.

Russia has cultivated closer ties with Iran and other countries hostile towards the US, such as North Korea, since the start of the Ukraine war, and has strategic pacts with Pyongyang and close ally Belarus, as well as a strategic partnership agreement with China.

The 20-year Russia-Iran agreement, which will include provisions for closer defence cooperation, is likely to worry the West which sees both countries as malign influences on the world stage. Moscow and Tehran say their increasingly close ties are not directed against other countries.

Russia has made extensive use of Iranian drones during the war in Ukraine and the United States accused Tehran in September of delivering close-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine.

Tehran denies supplying drones or missiles.

Iran never plotted to kill Donald Trump, Iranian president says

The Kremlin has declined to confirm it has received Iranian missiles, but has acknowledged that its cooperation with Iran includes “the most sensitive areas”.

Putin met Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan in October and at a cultural forum in Turkmenistan the same month.

Pezeshkian is accompanied to Moscow by his oil minister, and Western sanctions on the sector are likely to be discussed.