Iran Rejects Russia Pledge to Halt Arms
Russia’s promise not to sell more arms to Iran, given by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin to President Clinton last week, “amounts to nothing,” a senior Iranian official said Monday.
A 1988 arms deal between the former Soviet Union and Iran was effectively open-ended, said the official, who asked not to be identified. Russia decided to stick with that deal after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1992, the official said, and there is nothing in the promise Yeltsin made in Washington to change that.
The official characterized Yeltsin’s promise as “face-saving propaganda for what has not been achieved.” Yeltsin agreed that Russia would sign “no other new contracts” to supply arms to Iran, but the Iranian official said that no further contracts were necessary.
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