Belarus and Iran, both friends of Putin, plan to strengthen military and broader ties

By Mark Trevelyan

(Reuters) -Belarus and Iran - two countries that have backed Russia's war in Ukraine - plan to deepen bilateral ties across all areas including defence, their presidents said at talks in Minsk on Wednesday.

Belarusian state news agency Belta said presidents Alexander Lukashenko and Masoud Pezeshkian agreed to work on a strategic partnership treaty.

"In conditions of geopolitical turbulence, Minsk and Tehran are undertaking consistent and balanced steps to further develop cooperation, and are working hard to turn each new challenge into a new opportunity," it quoted Lukashenko as saying.

"We are ready to discuss any issues, we have no closed topics," Lukashenko said, adding that the two countries could partner across a range of areas including "military-technical cooperation".

Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory as a launchpad for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and later assented to hosting Russian tactical nuclear missiles.

Iran has supplied drones to Russia for use in the war and Pezeshkian signed a strategic cooperation treaty with Putin in January, although it did not include a mutual defence clause.

Both Iran and Belarus are under what Pezeshkian described as "illegal Western sanctions". Belta quoted him as saying Iran was ready to help Belarus "neutralise" such measures, noting that it had more than 40 years of experience in this area.

Pezeshkian said the two countries needed to build their economic and other ties to a level that matched the high level of trust between them.

"Of course, our common views should be implemented in the economic and cultural spheres, in the development of tourism between our countries, and also, as you noted, in the development of military-technical cooperation," Belta quoted him as telling Lukashenko.

(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Alex Richardson)