Report, denial that Iranian commander met Putin

General Soleimani subject to travel ban by UN

DUBAI, Dec 17, (RTRS): An Iranian news agency said on Wednesday the commander of foreign operations for Tehran’s elite Revolutionary Guards had met Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, but his spokesman flatly denied the report.

Fars news agency said General Qassem Soleimani, who visited Moscow in July to aid in planning the Russian military intervention in Syria, was back there last week for talks with Putin and senior military and security officials.

Russia and Iran support Syrian President Bashar alAssad against various rebel groups in that country’s civil war.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov issued a quick denial. “No, there wasn’t,” RIA news agency quoted him as saying when he was asked whether there had been such a meeting.

There was a similar confusion about Soleimani’s travels last July. An Iranian official and two United States security sources told Reuters he had visited Moscow but Russia denied this.

Backed by Russian air strikes, hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria since late September to take part in a pro-government ground offensive, their biggest deployment in the country to date.

Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, has been subject to an international travel ban and asset freeze by the UN Security Council since 2007 for his alleged role in illicit arms trafficking and smuggling nuclear materials. Young Iraqi Kurdish women take selfie pictures as Kurds marked Flag Day on Dec 17, in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish

region in northern Iraq. (AFP)