A Kuwaiti newspaper claimed on Friday that indirect talks have taken place in Moscow between Iran and Israel in an attempt to find solutions for a number of regional issues, mainly Tehran’s nuclear programme and the Iranian presence in Syria.

Al-Jarida said that the visits to Moscow of senior Iranian official Ali Akbar Velayati and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the same time were not a coincidence. They were, it claimed, arranged by the Russians to conduct indirect talks.

“Russia passed the Israeli demands to Tehran and asked [the Iranian government] to dispatch a representative with full power to reach a solution for the Iranian issue with Syria,” said an unnamed diplomat. Velayati is said to have responded to all the Israeli demands during his meeting with Vladimir Putin on Thursday and proposed Iran’s conditions to accept the US demands regarding the Iranian nuclear programme. He apparently asked Putin to take the conditions to the Russian President’s meeting with Donald Trump slated for 16 July.

The diplomat added that Iran has started to tone down its position on Israel in return for some leniency to be shown by Washington and Europe.

Velayati arrived in Moscow on Wednesday to hand over a message from Iran’s Supreme Leader to Putin and discuss mutual relations as well as regional and international issues with senior Russian officials. Putin, the foreign diplomat pointed out, voiced his rejection of the US sanctions on Iran and stressed his support for Russia’s main ally in the Middle East.