| Moscow corrects the “memoir” of Gore - Chernomyrdin The Russian delegation, headed by Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov, completed its visit to Iran yesterday and returned to Moscow. Russian-Iranian contacts are traditionally a highly classified topic, so official information about the current visit is more than scant. What is known is that Mr. Ivanov held negotiations with the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, during which a personal message from President Putin was conveyed to his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Khatami. Meetings between the Security Council Secretary and the Iranian Defense Minister, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian intelligence chief took place. The streamlined formulation of the topic - “discussion of a wide range of issues of Russian-Iranian relations, regional cooperation and interaction on the world stage” - indicates only one thing: Moscow and Tehran have agreed to continue to avoid excessive publicity of their cooperation. Especially in the military and military-technical fields.
Nevertheless, sources of the Vremya Novostey newspaper confirm the information that Moscow has fundamentally reconsidered its attitude towards the prospects for military-technical cooperation (MTC) with Tehran. The unspoken agreement with Washington, which for the last five years has severely limited the export of Russian arms to Iran, has been decided to be “slightly adjusted.” So far we are talking only about the continuation of military supplies under contracts concluded before 1995 (the agreement with the Americans assumed that their implementation would be finally completed by the beginning of this year). Our interlocutors in the Russian military-industrial complex claim that even the implementation of existing contracts with Iran can “bring good income for at least the next decade,” and indicate that the Kremlin does not exclude the possibility of concluding new agreements on the supply of weapons permitted for export to Iran. At the same time, the United States is unlikely to be able to make any serious claims against Russia. The fact is that the very conclusion of the “gentlemen's agreement” regarding Iran in 1995 between Moscow and Washington is a rather dark story. Experts in the field of military-technical cooperation argue that there are simply no other similar precedents. After all, the agreement to curtail Russian military supplies to Iran was never formalized in the form of an official document. There was only a certain secret “memorandum” on this matter, endorsed by the American and Russian sides during the work of the Gore-Chernomyrdin commission. Subsequently, both presidents, both Russian and American, mentioned the refusal to export Russian weapons to Iran in their public speeches. But they mentioned it only indirectly: the agreement was so confidential that both sides over the past 5 years have never officially recognized even the very fact of its existence! It is curious that all these years, Russian arms exporters have had to limit contacts with Iranian customers, although there were no official prohibitory documents in this regard. It’s just that everyone knew that there was “such an attitude” at the top.
In recent days, Gore-Chernomyrdin’s “memorandum” has unexpectedly become interested on the other side of the Atlantic. There, Al Gore's rival in the presidential election, Bush, is now making full use of this complicated story in his fight. At the same time, Mr. Gore is accused of hiding agreements with the Russian leadership regarding Iran from the American Congress, since Viktor Chernomyrdin personally asked him about it. By the way, our sources in Russian military-industrial circles assure that the postponement of consultations with the American side regarding “adjustments” in relations with Iran is precisely due to the fact that Moscow “would not want to add fuel to the fire of the election struggle in the United States.” Yuri GOLOTYUK |
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