Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev will tour Iranian military installations this week in a controversial visit aimed at building arms trade with Teheran despite threats of US economic sanctions.
After visiting neighboring Azerbaijan on Monday, Sergeyev will fly to Iran for three days to seek "ways to develop and increase Iranian-Russian cooperation at the regional and international level," Teheran defense sources said.
In Moscow, the generals were more blunt.
"High on the talks' agenda is the development of military cooperation," said Leonid Ivashov, head of foreign affairs in the Russian defense ministry.
Although no official documents are set to be signed, Sergeyev's visit and its timing will hardly please the new US administration and its extensive interests in the oil-rich but tense region.
Only days before November's US presidential vote, Moscow flatly told Washington it was scrapping a secret five-year-old agreement to cease conventional arms sales to Iran.
The decision prompted the White House to warn that trade ties could suffer as a result, although no direct measure has been taken since.
Russia had originally agreed to stop all scheduled exports of tanks, armored personnel carriers and, more notably, Kilo-class attack submarines that Iran could use to patrol the Gulf, by the end of the year.
But President Vladimir Putin's administration, actively pursuing ties with former Soviet-era allies and specifically focusing its attention on the strategic Caspian Sea, has since changed its mind.
And while Sergeyev failed to address his Iranian visit in an extensive weekend interview, the Russian marshal did strike a firm tone demanding Washington's respect.
"Russia and NATO are each too big a player in European and global politics to endlessly play games of intrigue with each others' interests," Sergeyev told the Krasnaya Zvezda army newspaper.
He added sternly that Russia "gives maximum priority ... to non-military means of preventing conflicts and saving stability."
Analysts meanwhile were divided as to what concrete results Sergeyev's visit -- which is scheduled to include an interview with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami -- can bring.
"This is a test visit in which Sergeyev's military experts will attempt to determine the state of the Iranian army and its needs," said Yury Gladkevich, senior defense analyst with the AVN military news service.
"Experts think that Iran will spend 25-27 billion dollars on re-armament, and we can expect about seven billion dollars of that," with the other contracts awarded to China and Europe, he said.
"It is not difficult to conclude that the West will be upset with this visit, but it does not contradict any international treaties."
Meanwhile on the diplomatic front, analysts note that while Washington has voiced its displeasure with the extension of Teheran-Moscow defense ties, it has done surprisingly little to interfere.
"It is interesting that the US has not only failed to impose any economic sanctions, but has since actually lifted a ban on the launch of US satellites by (Russian) Proton rockets," said Konstantin Makiyenko of Moscow's Analysis Center of Strategies and Technologies.
In Moscow, Makiyenko said, some analysts suspect that Iran is being used as a bargaining chip in US plans to build a nuclear defense shield, that Moscow fears and which breaches the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM).
"Possibly, behind the scenes, an agreement has been reached in which Moscow gets Iran in exchange for the softening of its position on the ABM," Makiyenko said.
"But it is not yet clear how the new US administration will react to such a deal," he added -- MOSCOW (AFP)
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