Russian leader targeted
MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin has been told about a plot to assassinate him during a visit to Iran this week, a Kremlin spokeswoman said Sunday.
The spokeswoman, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, refused further comment.
Interfax news agency, citing a source in Russia’s special services, said suicide terrorists had been trained to carry out the assassination.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, denied any such plot had been uncovered, characterizing the news as disinformation spread by Iran’s adversaries.
“These sort of reports are completely baseless and in direction with psychological operations of enemies of relations between Iran and Russia,” Hosseini said in a statement.
Putin is to travel to Tehran on Monday night from Germany after meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
During his visit to Iran, Putin is to meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and attend Tuesday’s summit of Caspian Sea nations.
He will be the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since Josef Stalin attended a 1943 wartime summit with Britain’s Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt.
Officials have reported uncovering at least two other plots to kill Putin on foreign trips since he became president in 2000.