At a high-level summit in Minsk on August 20, Presidents Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran agreed to deepen bilateral defense ties, pledging to broaden military-technical cooperation as part of a wider strategic partnership, and laid the groundwork for a formal strategic partnership treaty. The two leaders signed a suite of 13 agreements covering sectors from industry to tourism, education, and science, with defense cooperation featuring prominently.
President Lukashenko underscored Belarus’s readiness to engage on all fronts, declaring, “We are ready to cooperate with you on all issues, from providing your country with food to military-technical cooperation.” He reaffirmed solidarity with Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear development and denounced recent U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities as destabilizing.
President Pezeshkian, citing Iran’s decades of experience managing Western sanctions, offered to assist Belarus in mitigating such economic pressures. He emphasized that their deepening ties must align economic and cultural relations with the existing bonds of political trust
This diplomatic surge builds on several prior developments earlier in 2025. In March, the two defense ministers, Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh of Iran and General Viktor Khrenin of Belarus, formalized a memorandum of understanding to boost defense cooperation. The agreement targeted the expansion of military technology cooperation, counterterrorism efforts, joint training programs, and engagement through multilateral entities like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to counter Western influence.
The latest accords, combined with prior foundational steps, reflect a coordinated strategy to deepen strategic alignment amid a tumultuous geopolitical climate where both nations find renewed purpose, anchored in shared resistance to Western pressure and mutual support for Russian endeavors, particularly in the Ukraine crisis.
