There is a political debate in Russia over the country’s blossoming relationship with Iran, according to New York Times on Friday.
A state visit this week by the Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami, the first of its kind since the Iranian revolution, has not only set off alarms in the Bush administration over Moscow's determination to sell arms and nuclear technology to Tehran. It has also caused prominent Russians to question the prudence of developing warmer relations with a country believed to be supporting terrorism, said the report.
"The patron of international terrorism has been promised increased sales of arms and broader cooperation in the nuclear energy field," the newspaper Sevodnya said on Wednesday, summing up the visit, which it said had "lived up to Washington's worst expectations." Putin met with the Iranian leader on Monday and then left for his four-day vacation.
"The Khatami presidency is a liberal facade for the fundamentalist regime," Izvestia said after the visit, under a headline "Dangerous Deal." The real power in Iran, the newspaper warned on Wednesday, "is held not by the liberal Khatami but by the ayatollahs, who take quite a different view of the country's future and its relationship with the outside world – Albawaba.com
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