Russian leader's 1st trip to Iran viewed as test of Kremlin intentions

[Marcus Marulus]

Russian leader's 1st trip to Iran viewed as test of Kremlin intentions

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV



Updated: 8:44 p.m. ET Oct. 14, 2007

MOSCOW - When President Vladimir Putin visits Tehran this week, he will be closely watched for any sign that he has moved closer to launching the nuclear reactor Russia is building for Iran.

Russia has resisted the U.S. push for stronger sanctions against Tehran and strongly warned Washington against using force. But its position is carefully hedged: It has delayed completing the plant, Iran's first, and is urging the country to comply with international controls on its nuclear activities.

Any show of support for Iran, such as a pledge by Putin to quickly complete the power plant, could embolden Iran and further cloud Russia's relations with the West.

Putin bluntly spelled out his disagreements with Washington, saying on Wednesday that he saw no "objective data" to prove Western claims that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. And at talks Friday with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, he ridiculed U.S. plans for a missile defense system in eastern Europe, supposedly to stop an Iranian attack.

His bluntness appeared to shock Rice and Gates.

Putin's visit, during which he will meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and attend Tuesday's summit of Caspian Sea nations, is a first. No Kremlin leader has traveled to Iran since Josef Stalin in 1943, for a wartime summit with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In Moscow, a Kremlin spokeswoman said on Sunday that Putin had been told of a plot to assassinate him during his visit to Iran. The spokeswoman, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, refused further comment.

Interfax news agency, citing a source in Russia's security services, said suicide terrorists had been trained to carry out the assassination. A spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, denied any such plot had been uncovered and he characterized the news as disinformation spread by adversaries hoping to spoil Russian-Iranian relations.

Putin's trip is important for Iran even if it yields no agreements. "It's a break in international isolation, a chance to show that Iran is an important country," said Alexander Pikayev, a leading expert on Iran with Russia's Institute for World Economy and International relations.

But it will highlight a reality sometimes overlooked by a world focused on the West's confrontation with Iran: that the Kremlin also has its problems with the Islamic republic.

Although Russia has shielded Iran from harsher sanctions in the U.N. Security Council, its relations with Tehran have been hurt by disputes over the US$1 billion deal to build the nuclear plant.

Russia warned early this year that the plant in the port of Bushehr wouldn't be launched this fall as planned _ the latest in a series of delays _ because Iran was slow in making payments. It has also delayed the shipment of uranium fuel for the plant.

Anxious to ease Western doubts _ and possibly its own _ about Iran's intentions, the Kremlin made it sign a deal several years ago to return the fuel to Russia after use so that it cannot be used in weapons.

Iranian officials deny being late with payments and accuse the Kremlin of yielding to Western pressure. Iran has started its own enrichment program, saying it wants to produce fuel by itself _ an effort that has heightened international suspicions. Iran insists that its program is meant purely to generate electricity.

Low-enriched uranium is used to fuel nuclear power plants. The highly enriched uranium can be used to build nuclear weapons.

The upshot is a slew of mutual suspicions, said Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine.

"Tehran views Russia as an unreliable partner that uses Iran in its game with the West," he told The Associated Press. "Iran has been very difficult to deal with and the Kremlin has felt strong irritation about it."

Putin's Tehran trip repeatedly has been postponed, as has the launch of the nuclear plant.

Moscow has said fuel delivery will start six months before the plant goes on line, but keeps delaying the launch date, citing the payment dispute.
Some analysts think Putin may use the summit to pledge to complete the plant next year.

"It requires political will to turn the launch key at Bushehr, and there is no reason to think that Russia lacks it," said Vladimir Orlov, the head of PIR Center, a think tank specializing in nuclear issues.

Other analysts predict Russia's balancing act will continue, to avoid angering either Iran or the West.

Moscow repeatedly has said it doesn't want a nuclear-armed Iran, and has urged Tehran to freeze uranium enrichment and answer international inspectors' queries about its nuclear program.

Vyacheslav Kantor, a Russian businessman who is president of the European Jewish Congress, said the Kremlin is bent on preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"We feel the intentions are very strong and positive," he said, voicing hope that Putin could persuade Tehran to meet international demands.

Meanwhile, senior diplomats of the U.N. Security Council's five veto-wielding permanent members, joined by Germany, are giving Iran until November to show a positive response to questions about its nuclear program or face tougher sanctions. Permanent members Russia and China agreed to two previous sanctions resolutions but have cold-shouldered the effort by the U.S., Britain and France to impose harsh measures.

So if Putin's trip to Iran does not yield answers to where the Kremlin is headed on the Iranian nuclear issue, next month's dealings at the U.N. may fill in some of the blanks.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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[Savorgnan]

Acting like that, it seems they are breaking the American's b*lls a little bit, aren't they?

[Marcus Marulus]

From The Times

October 17, 2007

Vladimir Putin pledges to complete Iranian nuclear reactor



Tony Halpin in Moscow

President Putin forged an alliance with Iran yesterday against any military action by the West and pledged to complete the controversial Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr.

A summit of Caspian Sea nations in Tehran agreed to bar foreign states from using their territory for military strikes against a member country. Mr Putin, the first Kremlin leader to visit Iran since the Second World War, insisted that the use of force was unacceptable.

“It is important . . . that we not only not use any kind of force but also do not even think about the possibility of using force,” he told the leaders of Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

The declaration of the five states did not specify a particular threat. Rumours have long circulated, however, that the US is seeking Azerbaijan’s permission to use airfields for possible military action to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

Mr Putin arrived in Tehran for the summit amid tight security after warnings of a plot by suicide bombers to assassinate him. His visit is a propaganda coup for President Ahmadinejad as he faces American and European pressure for tougher United Nations sanctions to halt Iran’s nuclear programme.

Mr Putin and Mr Ahmadinejad met after the summit for private talks. State television in Tehran quoted Mr Putin as saying that Russia would continue to “assist Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme”.

Russia is building Iran’s first atomic power plant in the port city of Bushehr. A row over Iranian payments has slowed down the work, and Mr Putin emerged from yesterday’s meeting without setting a date for the $1 billion (£500 million) project.

However, Russian media later reported that Moscow had promised to complete the work on schedule. “The construction and the commission of Bushehr will be implemented in accordance with the agreed timetable,” the Russian news agency Ria reported, citing the two leaders’ joint statement. Mr Putin also invited Mr Ahmadinejad to Moscow.

Mr Putin said that the Bushehr contract would have to be reviewed to clarify legal matters and the financial obligations of each party. Moscow has delayed delivery of nuclear fuel for the station as part of the dispute.

The Tehran declaration strengthened Moscow’s hostility to any attempt at a military solution. It also offered support for Iran by asserting the right of any country that had signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop peaceful nuclear energy “without discrimination”. Tehran insists that its nuclear programme is purely for civil purposes to generate electricity.

The summit was called to try to settle the status of the Caspian among the five states that border the sea. Iran and the former Soviet Union shared it equally but there has been a 16-year dispute over mineral rights since the emergence the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The leaders failed to reach agreement on dividing the seabed, which is believed to hold the world’s third-largest reserves of oil and gas. They agreed to meet again in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, next year.

Ties that bind

— Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled energy company, has invested $750 million (£370 million) in projects in Iran

— Russia exports $2 billion of metal and machinery to Iran a year

— Russia has supplied nuclear technology to Iran, including the $1 billion Bushehr reactor

— Russia is a key supplier of arms to Iran, including a $700 million air-defence system, MiG29 combat aircraft and T72 tanks

— Iran’s goodwill is useful for Russia’s attempts to control fractious Muslim minorities in Central Asia and the Caucasus

— Both countries oppose the eastward expansion of Nato

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[Marcus Marulus]

Putin warns against Iran attack during landmark visit

by Stuart Williams

Tue Oct 16, 4:48 PM ET



Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R)...

TEHRAN (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday warned against military action on Iran and backed its right to nuclear energy, during the first visit to the country by a Kremlin chief since World War II.

Putin, attending a summit meeting of Caspian Sea states, arrived in the Iranian capital amid heavy security and secrecy over his travel plans after reports that a squad of suicide bombers planned to kill him.

"It is important... that we not only do not use any kind of force but also do not even think about the possibility of using force," Putin told the four other Caspian Sea leaders gathered for the summit.

"It is also important that we talk about the impossibility of using our territory for other countries to carry out aggression or military action against other Caspian littoral states."

Along with the presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, Putin declared the states "would not allow their territory to be used by a third country to commit military action against one of the parties."

The United States has never ruled out military action against Tehran, but Iran's northern neighbour Azerbaijan, a US ally, has repeatedly insisted it would not allow the US military to launch an attack from its soil.

Tuesday's declaration also supported Iran's right to nuclear energy, which the United States claims Tehran only wants as cover for an atomic weapons drive.

It backed the right of Non-Proliferation Treaty members to "research, produce and use nuclear energy for peaceful ends, without discrimination, within the framework of this treaty and the mechanisms of the UN nuclear watchdog."

Putin's comments highlighted the differences between Russia and the West, which is seeking more unilateral and UN sanctions to punish Tehran for its nuclear defiance.

Russia has insisted that diplomacy is the way to solve the standoff and has said it is not convinced by the Western claims Iran's nuclear programme is military in nature. Tehran insists its atomic drive is entirely peaceful.

However, Putin was downbeat on the work to complete Iran's first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr, which is being built by a Russian contractor.

He said the much-delayed project was being held back by "worn-out equipment" dating back to the time the project was started in the 1970s by Germany's Siemens under the deposed shah.

"This is one of the problems preventing swift completion of the work in Bushehr," Putin said after talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who he also invited to visit Russia.

But Putin reaffirmed that Moscow was committed to finishing the plant within a timetable the currently sees the plant going online in late 2008.

Putin also held talks with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, when the Russian president said Moscow had an interest in a "strong Iran" and predicted that relations would expand further, state television reported.

Reports on Russian news agencies of an assassination threat had cast doubt over whether Putin would go ahead with the visit but to the relief of Iranian officials, his plane landed at Tehran's Mehrabad airport early on Tuesday.

The arrangements for Putin's departure were also being kept under wraps.

Russia's Interfax news agency, citing a source in the Russian special services, had reported on Sunday that a group of suicide bombers would try to kill Putin in Tehran. The Kremlin said Putin had been notified of the report.

Iranian media reported that Putin's armour-plated car had been air-freighted into Tehran ahead of his visit to ensure his security.

The Islamic republic has regularly hosted allies who share its antipathy towards the United States such as Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

But a visit by a statesman of Putin's stature -- his country is a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council -- was a major event.

The last Kremlin chief to visit Iran was Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who attended the famous conference of the "Big Three" World War II Allied powers in Tehran in 1943 alongside Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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