By JUDY DEMPSEYPublished: October 16, 2007
WIESBADEN, Germany, Oct. 15 — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said today he would travel to Tehran for a meeting of Caspian Sea nations despite a report by a Russian news agency of a possible assassination plot against him there that was immediately dismissed by Iran.
During a news conference after talks here with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Mr. Putin said he would go ahead with the trip to Tehran on Tuesday, a visit that is also likely to focus on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.
“Of course I am going to Iran,” he said. “If I always listened to all the various threats and the recommendations of the special services I would never leave home.”
A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, dismissed the assassination report as disinformation spread by those wanting to spoil Russian-Iranian relations. “Such kinds of false news will not have any impact on the plans that we have for Putin’s visit,” Mr. Hosseini said in a news conference today.
On Sunday evening, the Interfax news agency in Moscow reported that Mr. Putin had received a warning from the Russian special services that his life would be in danger during his trip to Iran this week. Interfax cited a single security source whom it did not name. This source talked of potential groups of suicide bombers. Other news agencies sent out similar reports today but without details or evidence.
In virtually identical reports, RIA, Itar-Tass and Interfax quoted an unidentified source saying, “The competent authorities are actively working with foreign partners on the information received yesterday about a terrorist threat in relation to Russia’s head of state.” Mr. Putin is the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since 1943, when Stalin attended a wartime summit with Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
