Sunni Shia relations 151007

Putin told of plan to kill him in Teheran: Kremlin

15 October 2007

MOSCOW/WIESBADEN, Germany - President Vladimir Putin has been warned by his special services of a possible plot to assassinate him during a visit to Teheran this week, according to the Kremlin.

Putin, arriving in Germany on Sunday night for talks likely to cover tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme, waved a hand dismissively when asked about an initial report of a plot on Russia’s Interfax news agency and told reporters “later”.

The President was due to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday morning and hold a news conference at around 1100 GMT.

Iran dismissed as baseless the Interfax report that suicide bombers were preparing an attack on the President. It described the allegation as “pyschological warfare” calculated by Teheran’s enemies — an apparent reference to Western powers — to undermine Russian-Iranian relations.

Kremlin deputy spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters he was unaware of any plans to cancel Putin’s visit.

Asked to comment on the Interfax report, Peskov said by telephone from Teheran: “The information is being dealt with by the secret services...The president has been informed.”

Interfax reported on Sunday that security services had been told suicide bombers and kidnappers were training to kill or capture Putin on his visit, due to start on Tuesday. It did not say who might be behind such groups in the Islamic Republic.

The trip to Teheran will be watched closely by Western capitals pushing Moscow for a harder line reining in an Iranian nuclear programme they fear masks a drive for an atomic bomb. Iran denies nuclear arms ambitions and is building a nuclear reactor with Russian help.

“A reliable source in one of the Russian special services, has received information from several sources outside Russia, that during the president of Russia’s visit to Teheran an assassination attempt is being plotted,” Interfax said.

“A number of groups of suicide bombers are preparing for this aim,” Interfax, one of a small circle of Russian agencies with special access to the Kremlin, added.

It gave no details of who the sources were or whether they were linked in any way to Western governments; nor was it clear why the Kremlin would make such a report public in this way just before the planned visit.

”I think this is very serious information,” the head of the Russian parliament’s security committee, Vladimir Vasiliev told the Vesti television news channel. “I hope that through the cooperation of international special services all this information will be verified and the necessary steps taken.”

“Psychological war”

The semi-official Iranian news agency quoted an “informed source” as saying Putin was still expected in Teheran.

“Western politicians and their media were trying to persuade Putin in a political action not to travel to Iran and now that they have failed in that, they intend to convince him not to travel to Iran by...rumour of an assassination.”

Putin, who will be the first Kremlin chief to visit Iran since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin went in 1943, will formally be in Teheran for a summit of Caspian Sea states.

But a meeting planned with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could give him a chance to seek a peaceful compromise over Teheran’s nuclear programme and to demonstrate his independence from Washington on Middle East issues.

Russia says engaging Teheran is a more effective way of tackling Iran’s nuclear programme than isolating it. It sells weapons to Iran, in defiance of US concerns, and is building a nuclear power station for Iran at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf.

However, Putin’s trip to Teheran is diplomatically tricky for the Kremlin.

Russian officials say privately they are uncomfortable about Ahmadinejad’s radical rhetoric, and travelling to Teheran could deepen differences with the West over how to deal with Iran.

Analysts say repeated delays in completing the Bushehr power station are a sign that, whatever it says in public, the Kremlin has deep misgivings about the Ahmadinejad administration. Russia says the delays are due to technical problems.

Source : Khaleej Times

[Comment] A European third way on Iran?

15.10.2007 - 07:57 CET | By Daniel Korski

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - US military threats towards a large, oil-rich Middle Eastern country that has supported terrorists and is bent on nuclear-enrichment splits the European Union down the middle with paralysing consequences for both the EU, and Euro-Atlantic unity.

Sound familiar? This time, the focus of attention has moved 1000 miles eastward from Iraq to Iran, but otherwise everything looks set for a repeat of 2003.

It will now be up to cooler heads to ensure that European unity is not shattered again as we move from a stalled (but not yet dead) UN Security Council process to looking at other ways of applying pressure to Iran and restraining the US.

At first glance, the battle-lines appear clear. Britain and France support tougher sanctions, threats of military action, and are dead-set against a nuclear-armed Iran. Germany and Italy are not convinced Iran's enrichment programme can be stopped, and do not support stronger sanctions, in part because they have greater economic interests at stake; in 2006, Germany exported $5 billion worth to Iran with Italy reaching $2.3 billion worth of exports. Hovering over the debate is the very real spectre of a last-ditch military strikes by the US itself, or by Israel with US backing.

Yet the reality is that European positions are not as starkly drawn. Everyone agrees
that a military solution would be both disastrous and probably ineffective. Everyone agrees that sanctions are at best a blunt diplomatic instrument. For sanctions to work, they must be hard-hitting, given time to work and be accompanied by offers of
long-term engagement.

Everyone also agrees that getting Russia and China on board will strengthen any policy especially as China will soon overtake the EU as Iran's main trading partner. Finally, everyone agrees that empowering the hawks – in both Washington and Tehran – is best avoided.

In this light, everyone should be able to agree that the road to the United Nations must go through the EU. To make UN action more credible and US military action less likely, the EU will need to act as one and make sure it has exhausted all peaceful alternatives. No European Foreign Minister will forgive him or herself if Iran goes nuclear or if the US goes the military route and the EU had not tried all peaceful means available.

That means following through on the European "Common Position" of April this year,
which toughened-up UN resolutions. The EU needs to strengthen sanctions, withdraw all export credits to European firms doing business with Iran – even if it means gifting billions to Iran and consider new ways of applying pressure to Iran's vital but dilapidated oil economy, which is being kept alive by the high oil price. This could include trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to increase oil production and discuss ways to safeguard China's energy requirements.

These are all difficult measures. But they have not yet been tried in earnest. French investment in Iran in 2004 amounted to €397 million and Germany remains Iran's largest trading partner, facts that give the EU considerable leverage. Tougher measures are also better than a nuclear-armed Iran, US military strikes and - if European policy descends to disunity and impotence as it did over Iraq - the very real possibility of both.

Source: EU Observer