Putin Stands up for Iran

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rouhani, have had talks in Moscow.

"Iran's latest actions convince Russia that Iran truly has no intention of manufacturing nuclear weapons. It means that we shall continue to cooperate with Iran in all fields, including nuclear energy", said V. Putin during the talks in the Kremlin.

This declaration by the Russian leader has immediately become top news in the world media.

President Putin also promised to develop still further the military-technical cooperation with Iran. Hopefully, he said, Iran "will abide by its obligations both on the bilateral plane in its relations with Russia and also in the international format".

For his part, Hassan Rouhani reaffirmed that his country's activities in the nuclear field are of a purely peaceful nature. Rouhani is one of the chief negotiators from the Iranian side on nuclear energy issues.

The Russian-Iranian cooperation in the field of nuclear energy is being closely watched by the US. Washington believes that under the guise of developing nuclear energy for peaceful uses Iran is creating its own nuclear weapon. Earlier Washington has been accusing Iran of direct support for international terrorism, and called on Russia to wind up its cooperation with Iran in nuclear energy.

At present Russia is assisting Iran in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr. This problem is expected to be prominent on the agenda of the forthcoming Putin-Bush summit in Bratislava.