, China and Iran were discussing a joint missile defense shield.
Dmitry Rogozin said cuttingly that Iran lacks the technological mastery to join in building such a system.
Rogozin is both Russia’s ambassador to NATO and the Russian president’s special envoy for missile defense. He is coming to Tehran soon for an official visit.
The Tehran Times reported this week that Rogozin would be negotiating the topic of joint missile defense system when he arrives.
But Rogozin squashed such talk in an interview Tuesday with Interfax, a Russian news agency.
“The Russian Federation could agree to hold talks on the creation of a missile defense system only with countries that have such potential and such scientific and technological mastery. But we cannot hold such talks with countries that do not have this potential,” he said, going out of his way to be nasty.
“Furthermore, the creation of a missile defense shield requires the existence of allied relations. Iran is our neighbor and partner, but it is not our military ally,” he said.
A number of Russian officials have been quite brutal in describing Iran as technologically backward. Over the years, many Russians have dismissed American assertions that Iran is planning to build nuclear weapons by asserting that such talk is nonsense because Iran doesn’t have the skills or technical mastery to build such weaponry.
