Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Tehran on Tuesday morning for a landmark visit despite warnings of a possible assassination plot.

 

Putin is currently attending a Caspian Sea states summit in Tehran and will hold meetings with Iranian leaders during his visit, which is the first by a Kremlin chief since Josef Stalin visited the country in 1943.

 

The Russian leader was welcomed by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at the airport and later officially welcomed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

 

Russia's Interfax news agency had reported earlier according to sources from Kremlin's security services that a suicide bomber was planning to kill Putin when he visits Iran, but Putin shrugged off the rumors during his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday.

 

"Of course I am going to Iran, if I always listen to what the security services said, I will never leave home," said Putin.

 

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini has dismissed the report and accused it of trying to harm ties between Iran and Russia.

 

The Russian president pays his visit to Iran amid growing tensions between Tehran and Western countries over its disputed nuclear program.

 

The United States accused Iran of developing atomic bomb under civilian cover and is now pushing the UN Security Council to impose a third sanction resolution against Tehran since last December, but Iranian officials have repeatedly denied the accusations and said they just wanted to generate electricity.

 

Russia has said it insisted peaceful dialogue was the only way to deal with Tehran's defiance over the UN demand of halting the uranium enrichment work, warning the West not to force Iran too much.

 

"The Iranian people and leadership are not scared of threat, believe me," Putin has said in Germany.

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 16, 2007)