Russian President: Peres told me Israel won't attack Iran

President Shimon Peres told his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, that Israel would not launch an attack on Iran, the Russian leader said in an interview with CNN released on Sunday.

Medvedev's comments came amid speculation that Israel was considering a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, which Israel believes the Islamic Republic is covertly using to develop atomic weapons.

The Russian president described such an attack as "the worst thing that can be imagined." He said Peres made the comment at a meeting in the Russian resort of Sochi in August.

"When he visited me in Sochi, Israeli President Peres said something important for us all: 'Israel does not plan to launch any strikes on Iran, we are a peaceful country and we will not do this'," Medvedev said in the interview, which was recorded on Tuesday, according to a Kremlin transcript.

An attack would lead to "a humanitarian disaster, a vast number of refugees, Iran's wish to take revenge and not only upon Israel, to be honest, but upon other countries as well," he said. "But my Israeli colleagues told me that they were not planning to act in this way and I trust them."

Asked about the possible delivery of advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, Medvedev said Russia had the right to sell defensive weapons to Iran. He said sanctions are often ineffective and no action should be taken against Iran, except as a last resort.

Medvedev also said that the chances of an agreement with the United States on a new treaty to reduce strategic offensive weapons by the end of the year remain "quite high."

On Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran had no use for nuclear weapons, adding that the Islamic Republic would "never" abandon its disputed nuclear program to appease Western critics.

Israeli officials have said that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat, citing Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel to be wiped "off the map" and his Holocaust denial. The Iranian leader's latest denial of the Nazi genocide was on Friday, when he called it "a lie."