MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Iran’s missile program should be dealt with as a separate matter to its nuclear program.
Putin was speaking in an interview with Arab broadcasters, including Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV, ahead of his first visit to Saudi Arabia in over a decade.
"The missile program is one thing and the nuclear program is another thing,” Putin was quoted as saying.
Putin also said Russia can play a key role in the Middle East as it has good relations with Iran and the Arab world. He said nobody in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates wants a confrontation with Iran.  
The Russian leader further chided finger-pointing over attacks on Saudi oil facilities on Sept. 14 which stoked tension and rattled oil markets.
Yemen's Houthi movement said it was behind the drone and missile strikes, but Riyadh and Washington blamed Tehran, which has vehemently denied the accusation.
The attack exposed big gaps in Saudi air defenses, prompting the United States to send around 3,000 more troops to the kingdom.
"It is wrong to determine who is guilty before it is known reliably and clearly who is behind this act," Putin said, adding that he had agreed to help investigate.
The Russian president said he had no reliable information about who was behind the attacks.
"Imagine, we don't know. The next day, I asked the head of the foreign intelligence service and the defense minister. 'No, we don't know'," he said according to an Arabic-language transcript provided by Al Arabiya.
Putin is due to arrive in Saudi Arabia on Monday and will hold talks with King Salman and Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman before leaving for the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday. Russia and Saudi Arabia are two of the world's biggest oil producers.
Tensions in the Persian Gulf have risen to new highs since May 2018, when the United States withdrew from a 2015 international nuclear accord with Tehran.
President Donald Trump has reinstated U.S. sanctions, increasing pressure on Iran's economy, and there have been attacks on Saudi Arabia and in Persian Gulf waters.
On Friday, two separate explosions hit an Iranian oil tanker operated by the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) near the Saudi port city of Jeddah, in what Tehran called a "dangerous adventurism".
"Piracy and banditry in international waterways which is done with the aim of making commercial shipping insecure will not go unanswered," Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani said on Saturday.
Putin said such attacks strengthened cooperation between oil producers inside and outside OPEC, an alliance known as OPEC+, and that Russia - which is not in OPEC - would work with its partners to reduce attempts to destabilize markets.
Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir, in a media briefing, said Riyadh was not behind the strike against the Iranian-owned oil tanker in the Red Sea.
Pakistan's prime minister is visiting Tehran and Riyadh this week to try to facilitate talks.
Putin said the region's rival leaders did not need advice and mediation.
"You can only talk to them out of friendship," he said. "I know that they, being smart, will listen and analyze what they are told. In this context we can play a positive role."
On Syria, where Russia and Iran have been key allies of President Bashar al-Assad during the country's war, Putin said any new constitution that is drawn up should guarantee the rights of all ethnic and religious groups.
A congress convened by Russia last year tasked the United Nations envoy for Syria with forming a committee to draft a new constitution, after many rounds of talks to end the war failed.
U.N. officials say forming a constitutional committee is key to political reforms and new elections meant to unify Syria and end the civil war.
Putin said Syrians "interact positively" with Russian military police and military stationed in the country.