''A contract for the delivery of air defense Tor missile systems to Iran has indeed been signed,''
Immediately following the announcement, the Pentagon issued this statement:
"A contract for the delivery of shoulder fired surface to air missiles to Chechnya has indeed been signed," Rumsfeld said in comments broadcast by Fox news, without giving further details. (wish)
Here's the connection.
The service of press of the official agency Rossoboronexport in charge of Russian exports of weapons, joined by AFP, affirmed that it "did not have information" in connection with this contract.
The contract "will not violate any international engagement of Russia", because Moscow had left in 2000 a secret agreement with Washington known under the name of
>>>>>GORE-CHERNOMYRDINE
protocol which limited the Russian deliveries of weapons to Iran, underlines Vedomosti.
The Tor systems are "a weapon of defense" and "represent a danger to the United States only if this country attacks Iran", raises a Russian expert of the magazine Exportations of weapons, Mikhaïl Barabanov, quoted by the newspaper.
Iran in particular seeks "to defend its nuclear thermal power station" that Moscow is building in Bouchehr, bus "Israel had affirmed that it examined the possibility of launching strike preventive against this site", explains a professor of the Russian Institute of the International relations, Sergueï Droujilovski, quoted by Vedomosti.
Washington shows Teheran to seek to obtain the nuclear weapon under cover of civil activities.
The purchase of the systems Tor M-1 could cost Iran more than 700 million dollars, according to another expert, Dmitri Vassiliev of the Center of analysis of the strategies and technologies.
Al Gore's Red Connections
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1997/vo13no07/vo13no07_gore.htm