Economic imperatives will sort out the differences between Iran, Russia and China, predicts Amani Maged One cannot help but wonder at Russia's recent decision to throw its weight behind a new round of sanctions against Iran. Is this new position, which sparked an angry exchange between Tehran and Moscow, indicative of a more general shift in Russian policy towards Iran? China's latest swing in favour of joining the ranks of nations in support of sanctions compounds one's curiosity. Are the shifts in Beijing's and Moscow's stances tactical moves or do they mark new strategic departures? Both Russia and China need Iran desperately. The Iranian card offers them considerable leverage against Washington, and it is difficult to imagine them sacrificing it for any reason. Perhaps this explains the stringent conditions they cited for lending their support for a sanctions resolution. Moscow has insisted that "smart" sanctions do not adversely affect the Iranian people and, in a similar spirit, Beijing has stated that the sanctions must not be comprehensive. Russia has always been aware that its gateway to warm water ports passes through Tehran, as does the prospect of reviving the Silk Road. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian-Iranian relations have expanded at all levels. The balance of trade between the two countries has steadily increased, approaching the $3 billion mark last year. Russia is currently in the process of building Iran's first nuclear energy plant and Iran has purchased billions of dollars worth of Russian arms. As two of the largest oil and natural gas producers in the world, the two countries cooperate closely in this field as well. Former Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Iran three years ago gave a major boost to their mutual relations. In this first visit to Iran by a Russian head of state since Stalin, Putin declared his support for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran's right to develop its nuclear programme for peaceful purposes and cautioned the US against taking any military action against Iran. Over the next two years, Moscow's policy has largely remained consistent with this line. It opposed new sanctions against Iran in 2008 and 2009 and shrugged off suspicions that Iran was bent on developing nuclear weapons. Nuclear cooperation between the Islamic Republic and Moscow dates back to the late 1980s, when the former Soviet Union agreed to export some $2-4 billion of arms to Iran and to help it develop its nuclear programme. The expansion in Russian-Iranian cooperation since the Putin visit helped stimulate the most significant qualitative advance in the Iranian nuclear programme since 1992. Among the other fruits that Iran has reaped from its cooperative arrangements with Moscow since 2007 is the latter's agreement to sell Tehran a S-300 missile defence system, a very useful means for Russia to pressure both Iran and the US. At the level of commercial relations, Iran is Russia's largest trading partner in the Middle East. Russian exports to Iran include minerals, automobiles, weapons and of course, nuclear power technology. Russia and China are two of the world's largest producers of energy resources. Russia possesses 23 per cent of the world's natural gas reserves and six per cent of its oil reserves; Iran possesses 11 and 16 per cent, respectively. They, therefore, make natural partners for the recently formed Russian-led association of natural gas exporting nations which control about 70 per cent of the world's natural gas reserves. Still, as closely as the two countries might be cooperating in this field, they are rivals in the construction of natural gas pipelines, and Moscow has been careful not to let Tehran draw away any of Russia's profitable gas sales to the EU. China, for its part, is Iran's number one trading partner. Last year the volume of trade between them passed the $21 billion mark, up from $15 billion only three years earlier. In order to offset the departure of many Western companies due to sanctions, Iran has flung open its doors to Chinese businesses and investors, especially in the fields of oil and gas. In fact, oil is the cornerstone of Chinese-Iranian relations. Iran is currently the largest oil exporter to China, supplying 14 per cent of China's oil imports. The $70 billion energy deal the two countries signed in October 2004, 25 year-long accord, stipulates that Iran will supply China with liquid natural gas with Sinopec, China's second largest petroleum and petrochemical cooperation, developing the Yadavaran oil field in southwestern Iran, estimated to have three billion barrels of recoverable oil. Sinopec will construct a gas condensate refinery plant in the southern Iranian city of Bandar Abbas within three years. But China's trade may not be so innocent. Suspicions that materials needed for uranium enrichment have been smuggled into Iran through the UAE triggered American charges against China for defying the international sanctions. The Iranian opposition complain that China has helped train Revolutionary Guard units and that when protest demonstrations erupted following last year's presidential elections China delivered anti- riot vehicles equipped with hot water cannons and teargas guns. In view of close and indispensable relations that Russia and China have in Iran, one can only conclude that the US pressure on them both reach stratospheric levels. With the Brazil- Turkey nuclear coup, there is no doubt the weight of their vital interests with Iran will in the end prevail.
