‘Iran to co-operate on NATO missile issue’

RUSSIA. — Iran has announced its readiness to co-operate with Russia, China and India on the issue of NATO’s missile shield and related threats from the military bloc, the head of its defence ministry said in Moscow.

“I’d like to support the idea of developing multifaceted defence cooperation between China, Iran, India and Russia to counter NATO eastwards expansion and installing a missile shield in Europe,” Hossein Dehghan said yesterday, at an international security conference in Moscow.

Hours later Dehghan was cited by RIA Novosti as saying that Russia, China and Iran may hold tri-party defence talks.

“We discussed certain aspects of regional security.

“It was proposed to hold a trilateral meeting of Russia, Iran and China,” Dehghan said after meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.

Despite a deal on Tehran’s nuclear programme, the US is still going to site its missile defence installations in Europe. They are being deployed over a perceived threat from “nuclear Iran” – a pretext which Moscow called a “fairytale.” — Reuters.