[NYTr] Kremlin claims Putin Assassination plot during Iran visit

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

CNN - Oct 15, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/10/14/putin.threat.ap/index.html

Kremlin claims Putin plot during Iran visit

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- 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. advertisement

Ukrainian security officials said they foiled an attempt to kill Putin
during a summit in Yalta in August 2000. And in 2001, Russian security
officials said a plot to assassinate Putin earlier that year in Baku,
the capital of Azerbaijan, had been uncovered by the Azeri special
services.

Russian officials linked both alleged plots to Chechen separatists.
Putin had sent troops back into the southern Russian republic to crush
resistance to Moscow's rule.