Posted on 10/03/2001 2:09:22 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
MOSCOW, Oct. 2 — Six years after it stopped major arms sales to Iran under pressure from the United States, Russia signed a new military accord with Iran today that the Kremlin said could lead to $300 million in annual sales of jets, missiles and other weapons.
Russia's atomic energy ministry also announced that it plans to deliver next month the first of two nuclear reactors for a 1,000-megawatt power station being built largely by Russian technicians at Bushire, an Iranian port on the Persian Gulf.
The actions, announced as the Iranian and Russian defense ministers met in Moscow, had been in the works for close to a year and were not unexpected. But they took on new meaning in light of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, which not only prompted Russia to join an American-led antiterrorism coalition, but also led Iran to issue its own condemnation of the attacks and an unusual expression of sympathy for the United States.
Washington, which still regards Iran as a leading sponsor of terrorism, strongly opposed the moves announced today. It now finds itself condemning a weapons deal whose seller, Russia, has become a crucial ally, and whose buyer, Iran, is a potentially crucial recruit to the antiterrorist front.
The Iranian defense minister, Adm. Ali Shamkhani, and Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, discussed the two nations' roles in an antiterrorism campaign today, the second day of Mr. Shamkhani's five- day visit, but offered no details of their conversation.
Both Russia and Iran are enemies of the Taliban government in Afghanistan and of Osama bin Laden.
Mr. Ivanov said last week that the two countries could find common ground in battling international terrorism. The United States sees Russia, a supporter of Western military action against the Taliban, as a potentially valuable go-between in persuading Iran to support its military actions there, or at least to refrain from attacking them.
Mr. Shamkhani said this afternoon that Iran would support military strikes against Afghanistan, but only if they were authorized by the international community acting through the United Nations.
Terrorism, he said, could not be defeated in a society "under the influence of superpowers."
One expert on Middle East policy, Daniel Brumberg of Georgetown University, said today that Iran was threading the loopholes in American policy, hoping to reap the benefits of a Western defeat of the Taliban without having to support it explicitly.
"There's still a plausible case from an American standpoint that Iran hasn't given up" targeting civilians to achieve its goals, he said.
Sergei Yastrzhembsky, President Vladimir V. Putin's spokesman, disagreed with that. "I have not seen any proof so far," he said today. "At least no one has given us this proof."
The military accord reached today sets out only an agenda for cooperation. But tonight Russia's NTV television network reported that the total value of arms deals between Russia and Iran could reach $1.5 billion, making Iran Russia's third-largest arms customer, behind India and China.
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