Source: The HinduVladimir Radyuhin
Israel will attack Iran this year if a new round of talks scheduled for
April fail, a leading Russian newspaper reported quoting a senior
Russian diplomat.
Russian diplomats at the United Nations believe the strike against Iran is “a matter of when, not if,” the Kommersant daily said on Wednesday.
“The attack will be mounted before the end of this year. Israel is
blackmailing [U.S. President Barack] Obama by confronting him with a
dilemma: either he supports the war option or will lose the support [of
the U.S. Jews],” a high-ranking official of the Russian Foreign Ministry
told the newspaper ahead of the U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria
on Monday.
After the meeting, the Russian diplomat said the attack could come
earlier, any time after April when the six-nation group holds new talks
with Iran.
The Kommersant quoted the diplomat as saying that U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton had asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov to warn Iran that the talks were a “last chance for Tehran” to
avoid the attack.
The newspaper said that a precise date and location for the talks was
still being discussed. Iran on Tuesday confirmed that the talks would
take place soon and said Turkey had been suggested as the venue.
The coming strike against Iran will save Syria from foreign military intervention, the unnamed Russian diplomat told the Kommersant.
“Americans realize that Israel will attack Iran and it would be too much
to have two wars in the region,” the diplomat said explaining
Washington’s consent to let U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan pursue his
peace efforts in Syria.
