UPDATE Russia and Iran's Nuclear Programme

Moscow is showing more of the stick to Tehran. On Wednesday, according to Haaretz, a senior Russian delegate said that Moscow is ready to discuss further sanctions against Iran if UN nuclear inspectors declare that the Islamic Republic has not fulfilled its commitments:

I do not rule out Russia taking part in working out new decisions by the UN Security Council concerning sanctions against Iran if there are enough grounds for that provided by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]....We have said this to our Iranian partners.

Comments

[Ali Khamenei]

We will autograph the Champagne bottle of Sarcozy, exchange caviar with the Russians, smile at Obama, but enriching uranium is too much fun to stop, and we must have our secrets as all sovereign countries do. Nuclear weapons have peaceful purposes: would not the disappearance of the Zionist state bring peace to the world caliphate? Of course we will talk and lie and delay. That is our right. Rule out -- rule in, not rule out, not rule in: our friends the Russians have their rulers. We know chess; they know chess. We know the Western nursery rhymes: Hickory dickory dock, the centrifuges ran out the clock, the clock struck one, the mouse ran down, Hickory,dickory, mock. Working with malleable children is a fine art. We love the children of the world. No need for the children to know about our weapon's grade uranium. But we can talk, talk, talk till the cows come home. And milk the news for all it's worth. Sanctions? Ha!