Nikolai Petrushev said the Westerners have no proof for their charges against Iran.
“We have been hearing for many years now that the Iranians are going to create a nuclear bomb any day now. No one has to this day proved the existence of a military component in Tehran’s nuclear program,” Petrushev said in an interview with the Interfax news agency.
“Even so, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confidently declares that a strike on Iran will be launched anyway,” Petrushev said.
That was, however, almost the complete reverse of what Panetta has been saying in recent months. Furthermore, just days before Petrushev’s comments, Panetta said Iran had not yet made a decision whether to build an atomic weapon.
Petrushev’s hostility seemed to be part of a new effort in Moscow to demonize the West in general and the United States in particular now that the Russian government is coming under domestic criticism and the regime may want a foreign foe to rally the public behind it.
Petrushev’s remarks were far different from those of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who a few years ago that Iran had lost the right to enrich uranium by its refusal to answer the questions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about its nuclear program.
Petrushev also said, “There is a likelihood of military escalation of the conflict and Israel is pushing the Americans toward it.”
He said Russia wants to end the dispute through negotiations. “So far, the result of these efforts has been insignificant, because both the American and the Iranian side are not very keen for it to be achieved, albeit for different reasons,” he asserted.