MOSCOW, Feb 22, (Agencies): Russia on Wednesday warned a strike against Iran could have “catastrophic” consequences and urged nations not to draw early conclusions from this week’s failed mission by UN nuclear experts.
“The scenario of military action against Iran would be catastrophic for the region and possibly the whole system of international relations,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told a news conference.
His comments came after a five-strong delegation from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) left empty-handed following two days of talks focusing on suspected military aspects of the country’s nuclear programme.
Chief nuclear inspector Herman Nackaerts said the team “could not get access” during the visit to Iran’s military site in Parchin where suspected nuclear warhead design experiments were conducted.
Russia has longstanding commercial and military ties with Iran and has condemned recent unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union over its suspected pursuit of nuclear arms.
Gatilov urged nations to wait for the IAEA’s official report before deciding to condemn Iran for failing to cooperate with the agency.
“I would not make any profound conclusions from the IAEA mission that dialogue failed and we reached a dead end,” said Gatilov.
“We are not dramatising the situation.”
A spokesman for the foreign ministry separately said that inspectors had visited Parchin on at least one previous occasion and had not yet fully explained why they needed to visit the site again.
The United States and its chief regional ally Israel have never ruled out a military strike against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme but Russia has always insisted the standoff can only be solved through diplomacy.
Russia said it was particularly concerned that a strike against Iran could be launched from an air base the United States leases in Central Asia’s ex-Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan.
The US base at Manas is currently used as a key coalition hub for operations in nearby Afghanistan.
“It cannot be excluded that this site could be used in a potential conflict with Iran,” foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters. “We hope that such an apocalyptic scenario will not be realised.”
“The statements from Washington which do not rule out a military solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis have caused serious worries in the Central Asian region,” he said.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted on Wednesday that his country is not seeking an atomic weapon, following an unsuccessful visit to Tehran by UN nuclear watchdog officials.
“We are not after an atomic weapon. We want to break the supremacy (of the world powers) that relies on nuclear weapons. God willing, the nation will reach this goal,” he told a meeting with Iranian nuclear scientists, according to an official government statement.
“Despite what the enemy (the West) says, nuclear energy is directly linked to our national interests,” Khamenei said, urging the scientists to “continue the important and substantial” nuclear work.
Israel believes that within 2-3 years Iran will have intercontinental missiles able to hit the United States, an Israeli minister said in remarks aimed at raising awareness of the threat it believes a nuclear Iran would pose to the world.
Analysts now estimate the longest range of an Iranian missile to be about 2,400 kms (1,500 miles), capable of reaching Tehran’s arch-enemy Israel as well as Europe.
But Israel has also been keen to persuade any allies who do not share their view of the risk posed by Iran that an Islamic Republic with atom bombs would also threaten the West.
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz’s assessment, in an interview with CNBC, was in line with an unclassified US Defense Department report in 2010 that estimated Iran may be able to build a US-range missile by 2015.
“They (the Iranians) are working now and investing a lot of billions of dollars in order to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles,” said Steinitz, a former chairman of the Israeli parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee.
“And we estimate that in two to three years they will have the first intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach the east coast of America. So their aim is to put a direct nuclear ballistic threat ... to Europe and to the United States of America,” he said in English.
“With God’s help, and without paying attention to propaganda, Iran’s nuclear course should continue firmly and seriously,” he said on state television. “Pressures, sanctions and assassinations will bear no fruit. No obstacles can stop Iran’s nuclear work.”