– PUTIN RISKS ‘ASSASSINATION PLOT’

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to visit IRANIAN Capital, Tehran, on 10/16/2007 and to attend a summit of Caspian Sea nations on 10/17/2007. It will be the first Russian President visit in Iran since Joseph Stalin attended a summit of the Allied Powers in 1943.

That high profile visit is a clear response to the refusal of USA to drop its program to deploy an anti missile defense system in Eastern Europe in countries like Poland, Hungary and Czech, and a further step in the  renewal of the Cold War. The visit is a major seatback for USA in its efforts to isolate the IRANIAN regime economically and politically in order to convince Iran to abandon its military nuclear program.  Vladimir Putin already declared in the last week that Russia do not have any evidence that Iran is really seeking for nuclear weapon. (see – VERTIGO).

Vladimir Putin’s visit and his meeting with the IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad legitimizes the IRANIAN regime and signal that substantial economic sanctions against Iran, authorized by the UN Security Council, is not on the Russian-IRANIAN agenda. It is a very bad news with very serious implication on the Middle East and its stability.

Ever since the second Russian invasion to Chechnya in 01/2000 there were several attempts of Chechen insurgence to assassinate Vladimir Putin who, in their eyes, is responsible for the atrocities committed by Russian troops in Chechnya in a very large scale.

Shortly after his election, in early 2000, Ukrainian security services foiled an attempt to kill Vladimir Putin at an informal summit of former Soviet republics in Yalta. In 2003, London police had arrested two men in connection with another plot to assassinate him.

On 10/14/2007 the Russian security service warned Vladimir Putin of a plot to assassinate him during his visit to Iran. According to intelligence sources a small group of Chechens planed to arrive to Tehran with the help of Islamic sympathizers and supporters of the Chechen struggle against the Russians. In Tehran the group intended to attack Vladimir Putin’s convoy with a series of coordinated suicide attacks in order to kill him.

The plot was foiled thanks to the arrest and interrogation, last week, of a Chechen militant. The status of the alleged “assassination plot” is not clear.

The news of the alleged “assassination plot” overshadow the real meaning of Vladimir Putin’s visit in Tehran and its trouble consequences.

 

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