Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will Russia after receiving an invitation from Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, an Iranian government spokesman said on December 28.
Putin has invited Raisi to Moscow early next year "in the framework of strategic interaction between Iran and Russia," Ali Bahadori Jahromi said..
The visit would address "bilateral, regional and national cooperation" and in particular "economic and commercial" cooperation, Bahadori Jahromi said.
The last Iranian president to visit Russia was moderate Hassan Rohani in March 2017.
Raisi, a hard-line conservative, took over from Rohani in August.
According to the Kremlin website, the invitation was extended by Putin earlier this month during a joint news conference with visiting Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Russia and Iran have good relations and are key allies of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's decade-long civil war.
Russia is also one of the parties to the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers under which Tehran was granted sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
Moscow has been taking part in ongoing negotiations in Vienna to revive the deal after then-U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018 and began reimposing sanctions, prompting Iran to rescind some of its commitments.
