A high-ranking Russian delegation for nuclear affairs will come to Israel in the near future for talks with a variety of officials about how to prevent Iran from achieving the knowledge and ability to manufacture nuclear weapons. The above was agreed to in the course of the meeting that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held last week with the Russian leadership and President Vladimir Putin.

Olmert believes that the differences of opinion regarding Iran’s nuclear program, “if they exist at all, are far more limited, and they are only on the tactical level that pertains to diplomatic comportment and not to issues of substance,” he said. Olmert spoke about this issue on Thursday night with the journalists who accompanied him to Moscow.

“I emerged from the meetings with Putin and others in the Russian leadership with the sense that Russia is opposed to Iran achieving nuclear capabilities,” said Olmert and added that the international community needed now to face down Iran and to stop all efforts to reach compromises with it just a moment before Iran crosses the technological threshold that will allow it to assemble a nuclear bomb.

Olmert hinted that the Russians said things and have taken action that cannot be made public, but which demonstrate that “they support my approach with respect to Iran.”

Putin told Olmert that Russia is opposed in principle to the use of sanctions against Iran at this stage and would prefer continued public dialogue with Tehran and, in tandem, to form an international coalition that is capable of preventing Iran from obtaining the technology needed to manufacture nuclear weapons.

This was published in Yediot on October 22nd, 2006

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