11-06-10 Russia to freeze missile sale to Iran

France says Putin confirmed scrapping planned weapons deal with Iran despite Iranian threats against Russia.Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has told France that Moscow will freeze a delivery of surface-to-air missiles to Iran,French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said on Friday following talks between the two men.Russia has a contract to sell S-300 missiles to Tehran and there was confusion whether the deal could go ahead under the terms of a fourth round of United Nations sanctions introduced earlier this week to penalize Iran over its nuclear program.However a spokesman for Sarkozy told reporters that Putin had confirmed the delivery would be frozen.The official quoted the Russian leader as saying Iran was "very unhappy" and wanted to impose penalties on Moscow for breaking the contract.The French spokesman also said that France and Russia wanted to speed up talks on the possible sale of French-made helicopter carriers to Moscow.Russia wants to buy the Mistral class warship to modernise hardware that was exposed as outdated during its war against Georgia in 2008.France has said it is willing to sell the ship,but talks have got bogged down over technology sharing."Negotiations are going on at a technical level and there is a desire on both sides to speed things up," the French official told reporters.