Laser therapy

The United States is forced to come to terms with the development of Russian-Iranian ties

Washington once again "caught Moscow in secret deals with Iran." The day before yesterday, news about this appeared on the pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times, and yesterday their version was picked up by officials. True, the favorite American topic - Russia's secret assistance to Iran in creating weapons of mass destruction - this time received a very unexpected interpretation. We are no longer threatened with new sanctions; moreover, Moscow has even received public praise from the Americans, since, as White House Press Secretary Joseph Lockhart said, Russia agreed, at the request of the United States, to suspend the contract for the sale of laser technologies to Iran.

In Moscow, this praise was reacted with restraint. As one of the direct participants in the latest negotiations with the United States on the “Iranian issue” explained to the Vremya Novostei newspaper, the Americans “as if there was nothing to thank us for”: the contract for the supply of lasers to Iran used in scientific research “was physically fulfilled by Russian enterprises even last year,” and therefore the talk about its suspension was “somewhat late.”

Another attack of concern among Americans was caused by the Russian-Iranian agreement, according to which the St. Petersburg Research Institute named after. Efremova pledged to transfer certain laser technologies to his Iranian colleagues “for medical, industrial and scientific purposes.” However, it was precisely the latter that American experts seriously doubted, calculating that “the use of such expensive technologies in civilian nuclear energy programs is irrational from a commercial point of view.” And, therefore, Russian lasers are intended for the nuclear weapons program, which Iran, according to the United States, is implementing in an atmosphere of extreme secrecy. According to Mr. Lockhart, the issue has already been discussed twice at the highest level: US President Bill Clinton spoke about it with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the Okinawa G8 meeting and during the Millennium Summit in New York. Moreover, as the Americans themselves believe, the last time they managed to put the squeeze on the Russian president, forcing him to promise to slow down the “laser contract.”

It is curious that the Russian participants in the negotiations with the Americans are convinced, in general, of exactly the opposite. According to our source, “the tone of Russian-American negotiations on nonproliferation issues has become much more even - without the former drama.” In particular, the Americans abandoned their previous reproaches regarding Russian-Iranian cooperation in the space field (this fall Tehran plans to begin creating its first geostationary communications satellite Zohreh, the contract for the development and production of which is expected to be awarded to domestic firms). “No new claims were presented to us; on the contrary, the Americans agreed that the sanctions imposed by the United States in 1998 against two Russian organizations - the INOR research and production center and the scientific research association - should finally be lifted.” Polyus,” said a source of the Vremya Novostei newspaper.



Most likely, the American pressure on Vladimir Putin is connected not so much with the mysterious “laser contract”, but in general with the new Russian policy regarding military and military-technical cooperation with Iran, which is being pursued by the current owner of the Kremlin. The agreement concluded in 1995 within the framework of the Gore-Chernomyrdin commission provided that Moscow would not sign new military contracts with Tehran. The domestic defense industry was deprived of one of the most profitable buyers of its products (in 1990-1994 alone, Tehran paid about $4 billion for Russian fighters, tanks, submarines, anti-aircraft missile systems and other weapons). According to Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who oversees military-industrial complex issues in the government, Russia did not negotiate on this matter for an unreasonably long time with either the United States or Iran, “and only with the arrival of Putin did some progress begin.” After the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, visited Moscow this January, and a delegation from the Russian Ministry of Defense visited Tehran in the summer, the issue of resuming military-technical cooperation between the two countries was only a matter of time.

Yuri GOLOTYUK