Putin Iran trip in doubt after "plot" report

By Michael Stott

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A historic visit by President Vladimir Putin to Iran was thrown in doubt on Monday after a news report that Russian intelligence had uncovered a plot to assassinate him there.

Kremlin officials said they could not be sure whether Putin would go ahead with his visit on Monday evening, backtracking on earlier statements that the president's plans would not change.

"The visit is not yet confirmed. The reason is the information about a possible terrorist attack on President Putin," Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov told Reuters in Wiesbaden, where Putin met German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Putin's visit to Iran, the first by a Kremlin leader to Iran since Josef Stalin in 1943, has drawn intense interest because of Russia's role as a mediator in six-power talks designed to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Russia's Interfax news agency reported on Sunday evening, citing a single unnamed security source, that Putin had been warned by his special services of a possible assassination plot during his visit to Tehran this week.

Kremlin officials declined to comment in detail on the report, which was repeated on state television channels.

Russian media are mostly controlled by the government and it would be unthinkable for a major news organisation here to report an alleged plot against the president without prior official approval.

Speaking from Tehran, Kremlin deputy chief spokesman Dmitry Peskov first said he had no information Putin would change his plans. But he later said he could not say whether or not the president would go to Iran.