President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran arrived in the Tajik capital Dushanbe Thursday to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as well as sideline meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.      

Upon departure from Tehran, Raisi addressed reporters on the "importance of regional cooperation," a fundamental component of his stated foreign policy. As a hard-line president hailing from the less accommodating, anti-US layer of Iran's political structure, Raisi has promised to prioritize neighbors over Western powers, with which the Islamic Republic has rarely been on good terms over the past four decades.

The Iranian news media reported that during the two-day visit, Raisi will hold separate talks with Russian and Pakistani leaders, meetings that are expected to be overshadowed by the fast-paced developments in Afghanistan, where a lightning takeover by the Taliban prompted by the withdrawal of foreign forces seems to have created a tempting vacuum of influence for regional players.

Both Russia and Pakistan are among the very few nations to have signaled potential support for the Taliban rule. Given Iran's affinity with Russia on numerous international issues, Raisi's meeting with Putin, in particular, could further align Tehran's stance with that of Moscow and lay the ground for a new alliance and even recognition of the Taliban.