MOSCOW, May 30: US President George Bush has dismissed reports of a planned attack by the United States on Iran as “idle speculation”.

In a Russian television interview broadcast on Friday, Mr Bush said: “We’ve had all kinds of reports that we’re going to use force in Syria and now some in the left I guess are saying force in Iran, force here and force there,” he told Russia’s state-run Rossiya channel.

“You know, this is pure speculation and we used force in Iraq after a long, long period of diplomacy. People love to speculate about US intentions and our military and I’m just telling you it’s idle speculation,” the US president added.

The Iran issue is expected to feature prominently on the agenda of an informal summit between Mr Bush and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Sunday in Saint Petersburg, where the Russian and US presidents will be among some 45 world leaders attending celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the city’s founding.

A Russian newspaper said on Thursday that the United States had cut a deal to use the two Caucasus republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia along with US-occupied Iraq as a launch pad for military action against Iran.

Both Georgia and Azerbaijan strenuously denied the report, as did the US ambassador to Baku.

The report in the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta appeared to stem from a toughening of Washington’s stance on Tehran, which it accuses of harbouring terrorists and having a secret nuclear arms programme.—AFP