 |
Powell Warns Russia Against Investment in Iran
US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Russian Wednesday that it should not invest in Iran by selling advanced weapons to Tehran.
Testifying before Senate Budget Committee, Powell said: "If Russia wants a better relationship with the United States and the West, we have to be concerned when we see suggestions that they may be investing in weapons sales with regimes such as Iran and perhaps even programs that might allow Iran to develop the kinds of weapons that we think the world does not wish to see Iran have. "
"We have to be candid in our discussions with the Russians when we have these kinds of disagreements. So in some ways it's the approach to Russia, it seems to me, shouldn't be terribly different than the very realistic approach we had to the old Soviet Union in the late '80s," Powell said.
"The Soviet Union, the old Soviet Union wasted decades of treasure investing in regimes that had no future. And I think it's a lesson they should have learned is that it would not be wise to invest in regimes that are not following accepted standards of international behavior," he said.
"This is a point we will make clearly to the Russian leaders as they come and visit with us. I have had this conversation with my colleague, Foreign Minister Ivanov," he said.
"If the kinds of sales that they are undertaking are destabilizing to the region I think we have to speak out against them and show them that they will pay a greater cost in the long run for investing in this kind of a relationship," Powell said.
In This Section
|