What Vladimir Putin told George Bush about Iran?

At the end of last year, the National Security Archive of the United States of America declassified and published transcripts of meetings and telephone conversations between the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and US President George Bush that took place in 2001-2008, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act. These documents not only reflect the state of Russian-American relations during the specified period and the approaches of the leaders of the two countries to key issues on the international agenda, but also contain the parties' assessments of the situation around Iran.

This is reported in a video on the Azad İran YouTube channel.

"The declassified documents reveal a number of new aspects of the Russian president's views on Iran and its leadership. Of particular interest are three documents, the first of which is a transcript of a closed meeting between the presidents of the United States and Russia, held on June 16, 2001 in Slovenia. The negotiations lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes. Also participating were then-US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Vladimir Rushaylo.

Recall that this period was marked by growing international concern about Iran's nuclear program. During the meeting, G. Bush expressed concern about Iran in this regard, stating that he "does not have the opportunity to do more than has already been done so far." In response, V. Putin noted: "There is no doubt that they (the Iranians - ed.) want to possess nuclear weapons."

The Russian president also added: "At meetings with our specialists, Iranian experts ask many questions on sensitive topics. I instructed our people not to provide them with information on such issues," the material says.