• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Russia Against Iran Becoming a Nuclear Power - Putin

Posted on: Saturday, 17 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

WASHINGTON. Sept 16 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow remains a strong supporter of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and is against Iran becoming a nuclear power.

"We are of course against Iran becoming a nuclear power," Putin said at a joint press conference with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on Friday.

Putin said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reassured him during their meeting the day before in Washington that Iran does not intend to pursue nuclear weapons.

"We support all nonproliferation agreements and this fully concerns Iran as well. We are open to our partners and we are transparent, which we told our Iranian partners yesterday," Putin said.

Russia would not like the situation surrounding Iran to follow "the North Korean scenario," he said.

"I hope our steps [together with the U.S.] will be coordinated and will lead to a positive result," he said.

Putin said nonproliferation issues were given significant attention at his meeting with Bush.

"We talked about the North Korea problem and the Iranian nuclear dossier. I should say our positions are very close to those of our American partners. We will continue to coordinate our work," he said.

"The potential of political-diplomatic methods for resolving all these problems is far from being exhausted," Putin said. "We will take all possible steps in order to settle these questions and problems and not aggravate them," he said.

Source: Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English

More News in this Category