Iranian parliament warns against Putin's new missile shield project

Jun 10, 2007, 11:39 GMT

Tehran - The Iranian parliament Sunday warned against the possible fall-out of Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer to the United States to share the use of the Russian-rented Gabala radar in Azerbaijan to counter a possible Iranian missile threat.

'Our diplomatic apparatus should harshly react to this new initiative and not allow Iran to become a tool for settling disputes between world powers,' the spokesman of the parliament's foreign policy and security commission told ISNA news agency.

Kazem Jalali said that the main issue was competition between the two countries but 'Iran opposes being the pretext for diplomatic expedience between the two powers.'

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini played down Putin's initiative during his weekly press conference on Sunday in Tehran.

'Russia has said that an Iranian missile threat did not exist and experts believe that this (deployment of 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic) is more aimed at confronting Russian and Chinese missiles,' the spokesman said.

'Iran and Russia have other numerous grounds for cooperation', the spokesman said when asked whether Russia was still a reliable partner for Iran following Putin's move and also Moscow's delay in completing the joint nuclear plant in Bushehr on Iran's Gulf coast.

'We will follow up the case (the Gabala radar) in our next talks with Moscow,' he added.

Tehran had earlier described as the 'joke of the year' the US missile shield project for safeguarding Europe against Iranian missiles.

It said Iranian missiles could not reach Europe and that it would be absurd for Tehran to target its most important political and trade partners.

Several political circles in Iran are gradually losing patience with Russia and blame the country for settling its differences with the West at the expense of Iran.

Russian contractor Atomstroiexport, which is building the Bushehr nuclear power plant, said earlier this year that there would be a delay in the completion of the plant due to a financial dispute with Tehran.

Iran has rejected the claims and said all payments had been effected in time.

The Iran-Russia joint project was originally supposed to be completed at the beginning of the millennium but has been delayed several times for various reasons.

The most recent agreement between the two sides signed last September in Moscow envisioned the supply of nuclear fuel in March 2007, the launch of the plant in September and the first energy supplies in November of the same year.

Iran has warned Russia not to link the project with the international dispute over Iran's nuclear programme as this would politicize the Bushehr plant.

Moscow has insisted that the Bushehr stoppage is a purely financial issue.