Putin pushes for Iran ceasefire that leaves nuke program in place

Contradicting the IDF, the Russian president said “nothing has happened” to Iran’s “underground factories,” i.e., nuclear facilities.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Russian President Vladimir Putin told a group of senior local news editors Thursday that hostilities should end in Iran with Israel being ensured safety and Iran the right to engage in “‘peaceful nuclear activities,” Reuters reported Thursday.

In direct contradiction to reports by the IDF and the International Atomic Energy Agency, he said he “knows” that “nothing happened” to Iran’s nuclear facilities, which he vaguely called “underground factories.”

Therefore, he said, everyone should look for ways “to end hostilities,” and have “all parties to this conflict to come to an agreement … to ensure both Iran’s interests, on the one hand, for its nuclear activities, including peaceful nuclear activities, of course…as well as to ensure the interests of Israel from the point of view of the unconditional security of the Jewish state.”

Israel maintains that it has caused extensive damage especially to Iran’s main nuclear enrichment site at Natanz, destroying thousands of centrifuges, and has demolished vital nuclear and ballistic missile sites all over the country, severely hampering the Islamic Republic’s abilities to make a run for the bomb or deliver it.

Russia has “outlined ideas” on how to address Israeli concerns to both sides, as well as the U.S., Putin said, including an offer to take Iran’s enriched uranium and instead be Iran’s supplier of nuclear fuel to its civilian reactors.

Iran has steadfastly maintained that it has a right to uranium enrichment and would never give it up.

When asked if Russia would supply Iran with weapons to defend itself in this war, Putin claimed that Iran has not asked Russia for any support except to maintain its civilian nuclear reactor in Bushehr, which it is doing.

“We once offered our Iranian friends to work in the field of air defense systems, but our partners didn’t show much interest then, and that’s it,” he added.

The president further maintained that the countries’ “Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,” which was signed in January and covers defense as well as many economic areas, did not include military cooperation and only “individual deliveries” have been made of items “in the military-technical sphere.”

He stood firmly against the idea percolating in Israeli and American minds of assassinating Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“I do not even want to discuss this possibility. I do not want to,” he said.

In connection with this possibility, he also said he didn’t believe Israel’s attacks would lead to regime change, as “there is a consolidation of society around the country’s political leadership” because of the war.

Despite Putin talking positively about the need to ensure Israel’s security, the Russian Foreign Ministry has focused on demands that the Jewish state stop hitting Iran’s nuclear sites, which Israel considers a strategic threat to the country’s existence and therefore its prime targets in its Operation Rising Lion that began last week.

“Israel’s continued, intensive attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran are unlawful under international law, pose unacceptable threats to international security, and drive the world closer to a nuclear catastrophe – the consequences of which will be felt globally, including in Israel itself,” the ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

Iran nuclear threatNatanz nuclear siteOperation Rising LionVladimir Putin