Putin said “the West will not be allowed to squeeze Russian companies out of Iran”

LONDON, June 22 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Russia will not let concerns about Iran's nuclear program be used as an excuse for "squeezing Russian companies out" of the country, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview broadcast Sunday, June 22.

Putin told BBC television in an interview that his country would continue to develop links with Tehran despite its own concerns about the Iran's nuclear program.

"Iran is our neighbor and traditional partner, and we have developed a certain system of international cooperation (with Iran)," he told the Breakfast with Frost program in an interview in Moscow that was recorded Friday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Russia had "some serious questions" about Iran's nuclear program, Putin said in the interview.

"We are against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," he said.

However, he added, it was known that "certain Western European countries" were also cooperating with Iran in this area, he said.

"We are against the option of using the subject of Iran's potential nuclear program as a way of squeezing Russian companies out of the Iranian market," he said.

"We plan to develop relations," pledged Putin, who arrives in London Tuesday for the first state visit to Britain by a Russian leader since Tsar Alexander II in 1874.

Russia has drawn U.S. ire for building Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr and for insisting that the oil-rich country is not seeking to develop a nuclear weapons program.

Iran has repeatedly rejected international demands to immediately allow tougher inspections of its nuclear program by the UN's International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA).

In a concession to U.S. concerns, Russia has said it will deliver nuclear fuel to the Bushehr plant only after Iran agrees to allow the IAEA to inspect all sites, not just those it has declared.

In his last conversation with Iran's President Mohammad Khatami, the Iranian leader asserted his country would sign up to a deal that "would put its nuclear program under full control of the IAEA," Putin said.

"We already have certain information that we have received from the IAEA concerning the Iranian nuclear program, and of course we have questions about this," he added.

Iraq Situation

Concerning the Iraq occupation which was fiercely opposed by Russia, Putin told the BBC that Russia’s opposing stance did not damage ties with Britain, saying that his relationship with Prime Minister Tony Blair was open and friendly.

“We believe it is possible to tell each other what we actually think rather than what our diplomats advise us to say,” he said, according to extracts from the interview published by the BBC online news service.

But he is scheduled to meet for only 30 minutes with Blair on his visit, according to the BBC's Bridget Kendall.

Putin told the BBC that Russia will insist that some of the multi-million-dollar contracts Russian oil companies signed with Saddam Hussein's Iraq be honored.

On his visit to Britain, which lasts up to Friday, Putin is expected to try and mend fences following divisions over the Iraq war, which Russia opposed.