The French newspaper Le Figaro pointed out that only Chinese President Xi Jinping is missing to complete what it called a “club of authoritarian leaders” who regularly challenge Western democracies and meet in Tehran on Tuesday for a trilateral international summit.

Le Figaro saw this trilateral meeting, which took place after Joe Biden’s visit to the Middle East and focused on Syria and bilateral issues, as a challenge to the US and an additional step in strengthening the anti-Western pole that began several years ago but crystallized because of the war in Ukraine. The newspaper added that the presidents of Russia, Turkey and Iran, despite their differences, have topics to discuss and questions to discuss in a tripartite or individual order.

She stated that for the Turks, their President Erdogan is coming to Tehran to get the green light he needs to start his “special operation” against Kurdish militants in northern Syria, where he wants to establish a “safe zone”. This military intervention is “difficult to avoid,” the newspaper quoted the diplomat as saying.

But the Turkish president needs to use airspace that is largely controlled by Russia, so he hopes to find a sympathetic listener in Vladimir Putin, who is also leading a “special operation” in Ukraine. In return, he has something to offer to someone who maintains good relations with Moscow and Kyiv and controls access to the Black Sea: the role of a mediator in the Ukrainian conflict and control over the evacuation of 20 million tons of grain from Ukraine, which will save the world from a food crisis.

The agreement, reached through the UN with the approval of Moscow and Kyiv, will be the subject of bilateral discussions between Erdogan and Putin. A new meeting could take place on Wednesday or Thursday in Istanbul, according to Le Figaro.

Le Figaro explained that the Iranians, for their part, have long wanted to buy combat aircraft and anti-aircraft missile batteries from Russia. Like Russia, they support the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, while the Turks support the armed opposition. At the height of the war, Tehran supplied the Syrian army, and Moscow supplied aviation and heavy artillery. There is no doubt that the Iranians now want to take advantage of the distraction that the war in Ukraine has created for Russia in order to strengthen their influence in the region through Shiite groups.

The French newspaper added that there was no doubt that Iran and Russia would talk about oil and how to circumvent Western economic sanctions against them. And about the Iranian nuclear program, which seems to be achieving its goal against the backdrop of indifference from Russia. Tehran also has something to offer in return, writes Le Figaro: Russia, according to the US State Department, can acquire several hundred Iranian drones, which it lacks in the war with Ukraine. In short, the alliance between the two countries is working well. Since the beginning of the year, Vladimir Putin has met with Ibrahim Raisi three times.

For Russians, this will be Vladimir Putin’s second visit abroad since the start of the war in Ukraine on February 24. The Tehran summit is full of political messages, primarily demonstrating to Westerners that, despite the sanctions, Putin is still capable of forging alliances and participating in international meetings. He then reminds Ukraine’s American and European allies that much of the world supports the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine, at least tacitly, as Le Figaro explains.

The summit also proves once again that since the creation of the Astana Group in 2017, it is Russia, Iran and Turkey that have been pulling the strings in Syria, while Westerners have left the stage.

And Le Figaro felt that today’s summit in Tehran reinforces what it called the “camp of dictators against democracies” amid the US withdrawal from the Middle East. The battle against the West in Moscow and Tehran and the forgotten Ankara, which officially remains a strong NATO ally, will no doubt be a common dish of the three presidents in Tehran. Moreover, as a reminder of the strength of his irritation with the West and the leverage he has against Vladimir Putin, Erdogan once again threatened to “freeze” Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership.

Not the “flawless assurances” of Joe Biden, who promised during his difficult diplomatic trip to the Middle East that the US would not withdraw from the region, would not prevent emerging powers from filling the void left by the Americans in the Middle East,” Le Figaro writes, given that the new the meeting in Astana, although it did not lead to concrete decisions, has already achieved many of its goals. She showed that, despite the divisions caused by the war in Ukraine, and despite the Turkish ambiguity on this issue, the alternative front remains solid between Russia, Iran and Turkey.