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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Russia's president on Friday of turning against Tehran and joining the U.S. in spreading lies about its nuclear program, in the latest sign that Iran is drifting apart from a one-time key backer.
Ahmadinejad said Dmitry Medvedev entered a "propaganda drama" directed by Washington by saying last week that Iran was getting closer to being able to develop nuclear weapons.
The Iranian president has had harsh words for Moscow since it became apparent that Russia would support last month's new United Nations sanctions agai
Russia promises Iran fuel despite sanctions
Wed Jul 14, 7:42 am ET
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian companies are ready to supply fuel to energy-hungry Iran, despite unilateral US and EU sanctions targeting Tehran's oil and gas sectors, the Russian energy minister said on Wednesday.
Russia has already expressed its dissatisfaction with the sanction measures agreed last month by the United States and the European Union to punish Iran for its defiance in the nuclear standoff.
These go beyond the new UN sanctions that were agreed by Russia and other world powers which mainly target military-related industries.
"Sanctions cannot hinder us," Shmatko said after a meeting in Moscow with Iranian Oil Minister Massoud Mir Kazemi, quoted by Russian news agencies.
Originally posted by Danbones
reply to post by SLAYER69
Funny, every time he plays propaganda wars with the US he kicks their @@s
Detente And Modernization
According to a report in "Russian Newsweek," Moscow is planning to reorient its foreign policy in a more pragmatic and pro-Western direction. The story by journalists Konstantin Gaaze and Mikhail Zigar, which cites a recent Foreign Ministry policy paper, says the move is part of an effort to attract badly needed investment to modernize the country's crumbling infrastructure and diversify its economy to make it less dependent on energy exports:
The idea behind the document is that Russia intends -- not just in words but also in deeds -- to have a foreign policy in which there are not friends and enemies, but only interests. The country's economy needs to be modernized and foreign policy must also work to solve this problem. A senior official at the Foreign Ministry who participated in the drafting of the document confirmed that in place of a Cold War there will be Detente.
The policy paper's preamble, written by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, calls for "the strengthening of relations of interdependence with the world's leading powers," with the most desirable partners being the United States and the European Union.
According to the "Russian Newsweek" story, the "triumphant optimism of Russian leaders in a time of record-high oil prices is a thing of the past. In the post-crisis world, Russia is forced to look for friends and start a useful economic ties." It cites an unidentified Foreign Ministry official as saying that "the crisis has shown that Russia cannot develop independently."
The report (which, judging from the sourcing, appears to be the result of an authorized leak from the Foreign Ministry) comes as an increasing number of stories are appearing in the Russian media calling for closer ties with the United States and the European Union. Writing last week in "Yezhednevnyy Zhurnal," for example, Aleksey Makarkin of the Center for Political Technologies made a similar argument for engagement with the West:
[The authorities] have now begun -- at least at the conceptual level -- to develop measures to kick the oil and gas habit. The modernization of the country, however, cannot be carried out in isolation from the most economically developed -- and at the same time democratic -- states. You can not get investments from North Korea, or innovations from Venezuela.