Medvedev: Israeli officials promised they are not planning to attack Iran
In a CNN interview Sunday, Sept. 20, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said “Israeli colleagues” had told him they are not planning to attack Iran. He confirmed Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu had visited Moscow two weeks ago and had also met with him, but asked to keep the visit secret.
When Israeli President [Shimon] Peres was visiting me in Sochi recently, he said something very important for all of us: ‘Israel does not plan any strikes on Iran, we are a peaceful country and we will not do this’,” according to Medvedev.
debkafile adds: Unless Medvedev’s assertion is denied by Jerusalem, the Israel government has abandoned its military option to pre-empt a nuclear-armed Iran, but neglected to inform the Israeli public of this radical change of policy. For nine months, Prime minister Netanyahu has insisted that halting Iran’s attainment of a nuclear weapon, even by military means, was his highest mission as prime minister.
According to the Kremlin transcript, the Russian president said: My Israeli colleagues told me they are not planning to act in this way and I trust them.” he said. Although Russia has no defense agreement with Iran, “this does not mean we would be indifferent to such an occurrence…”
These words indicate that the Kremlin is not absolutely sure that Israel has indeed abandoned a possible strike against Iran and is holding an implicit threat of Russian military intervention over Israel’s head – just in Regarding the contract Russia signed two years ago to sell Iran S-300 air defense missile systems Medvedev said that “any supplies of any weapons, especially defensive weapons, cannot increase tension; on the contrary, they should ease it.” Israel has repeatedly protested this sale as a boost to the defense of Iran’s nuclear sites. His words indicate that Moscow intends to go through with the sale to Iran and possibly Syria too.
“Iran must cooperate with the IAEA, this is absolutely obvious, if it wishes to develop its nuclear dimension, its nuclear energy program. This is a duty and not a matter of choice,” said the Russian president. He made no mention of possible cooperation with Washington in arresting Iran’s nuclear program or imposing harsh sanctions on Tehran.