Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted Monday that he would travel to Tehran for a key visit to Iran. Putin told reporters in Germany during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that his trip _ the first by a Russian president to Iran _ would go ahead as scheduled. «Of course I am going to Iran,» Putin said. «If I always listened to all the various threats and the recommendations of the special services I would never leave home.» Earlier Monday, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Tehran that he could not confirm that Putin would arrive in the Iranian capital late Monday as scheduled. Russia's Interfax news agency, citing a source in Russia's special services, said Sunday that suicide terrorists had been trained to carry out the assassination in Iran. The Kremlin said Putin was informed about this threat. Putin said in Germany that the trip to Iran had been planned a long in advance and he would hold talks with Iranian leaders regarding Tehran's nuclear program, although he stressed the original purpose of the trip was to discuss issues affecting states bordering on the Caspian Sea. During his visit to Iran, Putin is to meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and attend Tuesday's summit of Caspian Sea nations. He is the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since Josef Stalin attended the 1943 wartime summit with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini dismissed reports about the assassination plot as disinformation spread by adversaries hoping to spoil Russian-Iranian relations. «Such kinds of false news won't have any impact on the plans that we have for (Putin's) visit,» Hosseini told a press conference Monday. Meanwhile, Iranian media also emphasized the importance of Putin's trip. Iran's state television said the visit would «show Russia's independence from the United States.»
