Le “triangle persan”, as the Russian press had dubbed the Tehran summit, took place on July 19 in the Iranian capital, bringing together Vladimir Putin and his counterparts Ebrahim Raïssi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Russian President, on his second trip abroad since the start of the war in Ukraine, was even received by the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who warmly congratulated him on his “special operation”.
In his wake, a few hand-picked Russian journalists also made the trip, including the special envoy of the leading business daily Kommersant. In an article quite out of step with the diplomatic issues of this meeting, the latter recounts his brief impressions of Tehran, its city center with run-down buildings, its traffic jams “monsters” and its street shops (“swimsuits, socks, underpants, slippers, nightgowns”…). “Is this what awaits us in ten years?” he wonders, referring to the international sanctions that are hitting Iran.
We are then propelled behind the scenes of the “triangle persan” where, visibly