Defence Minister Rajnath Singh completed his Moscow visit on Saturday and left for Iran for a bilateral meet. In a tweet, Rajnath Singh said he will be meeting his Iranian counterpart Brigadier General Amir Hatami.

Leaving Moscow for Tehran. I shall be meeting the Defence Minister of Iran, Brigadier General Amir Hatami.

— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 5, 2020

The defence minister was in Russia for a three-day visit during which he attended a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) defence ministers.

Significantly, on Friday, a day before leaving for Iran, Rajnath Singh in his speech urged countries in the Persian Gulf to resolve their differences through dialogue based on mutual respect.

Besides the SCO meet, Rajnath Singh also held bilateral talks with his counterparts from Russia, China and the Central Asian countries.

India on Friday said that it was "deeply concerned" about the situation in the Persian Gulf and called upon the countries in the region to resolve their differences by dialogue based on mutual respect.

A series of incidents in the Persian Gulf involving Iran, the US and the UAE in recent weeks have flared up tension in the region.

"We are deeply concerned about the situation in the Persian Gulf," Singh said in his address at a meeting of the SCO.

Last month, Iranian navy briefly seized control of a Liberian-flagged oil tanker in what the US said were international waters near the Strait of Hormuz, which links the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman to the south and the Arabian Sea beyond.

Iran has threatened to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz if the United States tries to strangle its economy.