Russia banking on quiet U.S. response to Iran deal
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SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, October 5, 2001
MOSCOW Ñ Russia expects a mild U.S. response to what could be a $1.5
billion arms deal between Moscow and Iran.
Russian officials and analysts said the Bush administration does not
want to divert attention away from Washington's efforts to form a coalition
against terrorism. Moscow has supplied intelligence and other aid for the
U.S.-led campaign against Saudi billionaire Osama Bin Laden.
Iran, the analysts said, has achieved normalcy with the
United States, Middle East Newsline reported. This despite Teheran's support of such Islamic insurgency groups as
Hizbullah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. The analysts said Washington recognizes the
importance of Iran in any U.S. offensive against neighboring Afghanistan.
"It seems to me that now, in the new context, the political and
military-political context, we have to break the perception of Iran as a
devil," said Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy director of the Moscow-based
Center for Strategic and Technological Analysis. "Because this perception
was largely molded by the United States based on internal political
considerations and I think that now we have to get away from this
perception. Iran is a sufficiently normal state for the region."
The United States failed to respond immediately to Tuesday's
announcement of a military cooperation agreement between Moscow and Teheran.
The agreement is said to pave the way for Russian arms sales to Iran of $300
million annually over the next five years.
Officials and analysts said Iran will also be a partner of Russia in the
U.S.-led attempt to overthrow the Taliban regime. They said Russia will sell
weapons that will eventually end up in the hands of the northern-based
Afghan opposition. The Iranian-Russian partnership, they said, will also
seek to contain Turkey, a rival of both Moscow and Teheran.
"There are serious military-political partnerships, notably in the field
of containing the Taliban movement, and military-political containment of
Turkey," Ivan Safranchuk, the Moscow representative of the Washington-based
Center for Defense Information, said.
The analysts said the major source of aid to Bin Laden comes from the
Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Pakistan. The leading sponsors of Bin
Laden and Taliban, they said, are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
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