French President Emmanuel Macron is reportedly behind a request made to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to mediate talks to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

This information has been reported by the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).

Macron’s name was revealed a day after the Deputy Chief of Staff for Political Affairs to the Iranian president, Mohammad Jamshidi, revealed on Twitter that “a senior western European leader requested [Raisi] to help mediate the war in Europe.”

یکی از روسای ارشد اروپای غربی از آیت الله رئیسی درخواست کرده بود که برای میانجیگری #جنگ_در_اروپا کمک کند. پس از مجموعه ای از رایزنی ها، یک ابتکار صلح در کنار یک پیام مهم توسط وزیر خارجه آقای امیرعبداللهیان به مسکو ارسال شد.

— Mohammad Jamshidi (@MhmmdJamshidi) August 30, 2022

“After a series of consultations, a peace initiative was sent to Moscow along with an important message by Foreign Minister [Hossein Amir-Abdollahian],” Jamshidi added.

Amir-Abdollahian arrived in Moscow on 31 August to hold talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Ahead of his departure from Tehran, the foreign minister said he was “carrying a message of a European leader to Russia,” adding that one of the goals of his trip was to help resolve the crisis.

Once in Moscow, Amir-Abdollahian revealed during his opening remarks with Lavrov that he had proposals to put an end to the war in Ukraine.

No EU officials have commented on the reports.

The news comes just days after the US claimed Iran was supplying Russia with hundreds of combat drones to be deployed on the battlefield in Ukraine.

However, Amir-Abdollahian has previously insisted that, while Iran maintains defense cooperation with Russia, they oppose the war in Ukraine.

“We have various types of collaboration with Russia, including in the defense sector,” Amir-Abdollahian told Italian news outlet La Repubblica in early July, adding: “But we won’t help either of the sides involved in this war because we believe that it [the war] needs to be stopped.”

“The current problem with the conflict is that some Western countries, including the US, have arms manufacturers who are trying to sell their products,” he stressed, adding that Tehran “will avoid any action that could lead to escalation.”