Even Russia Is Now Warning Iran To Back Off Of Its Nuke Program

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Even Russia Is Now Warning Iran To Back Off Of Its Nuke Program

By Pilgrim on February 27, 2008 at 08:05 pm

Russia has threatened to back more United Nations sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme unless it stops uranium enrichment in the next few days.

The US, Britain and France are pushing to impose new punitive measures on Iran, which they suspect of seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon.

Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s UN envoy, said Moscow could back a sanctions resolution drafted by the other three powers and which they want to discuss in the UN Security Council this week.

Russia, which has strong ties to Iran’s energy industry, has previously been reluctant to impose more sanctions.

Rusia has been a strong backer of Iran, especially in matters that involved confrontation with the West. I wonder what happened behind closed doors for their tune to change?

Comments

What changed? The Iranians are probably a lot closer to a bomb than before. It’s fun to be contrary to the US, but it’s really not in the Russians’ interests for the Iranians to have nukes...what with their domestic Islamic terrorism problem and all. Not to mention any strike on Iran by the US or Israel is likely to impact the Russian energy interests in the long run. Could be a whole ball of considerations, and not any one.

Seth Williams on February 27, 2008 at 09:44 pm

Well, perhaps stability has become more important to the Russians than defiance. As Putin gathers more power and further cements his control over the Russian government, maybe he realizes that the need to assert Russia’s independence from the West and its position as a World Power is not as important as acting to contain a nuclear disaster.

But who knows? We’ve never been terribly good at understanding the Russians and their motives....

E.D.Kain on February 28, 2008 at 06:45 am

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