Putin agrees to help Trump broker nuclear talks with Iran

Russia agreed to assist President Donald Trump's administration in communicating with Iran on issues including the Islamic Republic's nuclear program and its support for regional anti-US proxies, according to people familiar with the situation.

Trump relayed that interest directly to President Vladimir Putin in a phone call in February and top officials from his administration discussed the matter with their Russian counterparts at talks in Saudi Arabia days later, people familiar with the matter in Moscow said, declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither Russia nor Iran have publicly confirmed or denied the request.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to questions sent by Bloomberg that "Russia believes that the United States and Iran should resolve all problems through negotiations" and that Moscow "is ready to do everything in its power to achieve this."

A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, when asked if Russia had offered to mediate between Tehran and Washington, said only it was "natural" for countries to offer their assistance.

"Given the significance of these matters, it's possible that many parties will show good will and readiness to help with various problems," the spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, said during a televised press conference Monday in Tehran. "From this perspective, it's natural that countries will present an offer of help if it's needed." The ministry didn't respond to questions from Bloomberg News.

Since taking office about six weeks ago, Trump has tried to restore relations with President Vladimir Putin, which the US severed after Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As Trump seeks to broker an end to that war directly with Putin — including a Feb. 12 phone call between the two leaders — both sides have signaled they're open to cooperating on other geopolitical interests, including trade routes and resources in the Arctic.

Top US and Russian officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, discussed Washington's interest in Moscow helping with Iranian issues, during a Feb. 18 meeting in Riyadh, according to people with knowledge of the situation, asking not to be identified as not all details of those talks have been made public.

Russia's Lavrov later shared details about the US meeting with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi when they met in Tehran, Araghchi said in a televised press conference after the meeting.

Trump has sent mixed signals over Iran since returning to the White House. He said he aims to return to the "maximum pressure" policy of his first term, such as reimposing sanctions and targeting its security forces, including killing a top general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But Trump's also said he wants to "immediately" start working on a "verified nuclear peace agreement with Iran."

As two countries both heavily sanctioned by the US, Russia and Iran have deepened cooperation on trade and energy, as well as security, including Russia utilizing large numbers of Iranian drones in its war against Ukraine.

But it's unclear how receptive Tehran will be to any US overture delivered via Russia. Many hardliners, who dominate Iran's powerful institutions such as the IRGC and the judiciary, have publicly opposed engagement with Washington.

Last month, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Trump can't be trusted — since he withdrew from an Obama-era nuclear agreement during his first term — and that Iran wouldn't be bullied into negotiations.

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist who supports reviving the nuclear deal, said last week that he would set aside his personal belief in the need for US engagement and back Khamenei's opposition to talks while Washington continues to sanction Iran's economy.

Despite the public posture, "both the United States and Iran are trying to find channels of communication, productive ones which would mark the start of a dialogue," Nikolay Kozhanov, an associate professor at Qatar University's Gulf Studies Center, said. Any understanding between the US and Iran would be a "complex" one with the US offering sanctions relief and Iran agreeing to contain its regional ambitions, Kozhanov added.

The US has long suspected the Islamic Republic of using a decades-old civilian nuclear sector to shield a covert military dimension. Iran has repeatedly denied it wants weapons and insists its atomic work is for peaceful means including power stations that are partly financed by Russia.

The United Nation's nuclear watchdog on Monday said the US and Iran should begin talks, and that it was holding high-level discussions with the White House on the issue. That follows its warning last week that Tehran's stockpile of near-bomb-grade fissile material had surged more than 50% since Trump's election.

Iranian officials are also under intense pressure to deliver economic relief to a population exhausted by an acute cost-of-living crisis that's been compounded by US sanctions under both Trump and President Joe Biden's administration.

Iran is also locked in a bitter shadow war with top US ally Israel and has vowed to keep fighting despite Israel having severely weakened Tehran's key proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both groups are designated terrorist organizations by the US and other countries.