MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military correspondent...

Any actions in this respect are part of a domestic struggle which is obviously sliding toward civil war.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad"s recent demand that the World War II Allies reimburse Tehran for the country"s occupation during the war should probably be viewed from a similar context.

Known as Operation Countenance, the British-Soviet invasion of Iran was conducted between August 25 and September 17 in 1941.

Moscow and London strove to guarantee safe war-materiel supplies to the Soviet Union via the southern route under the Lend Lease Act, to prevent Nazi Germany from seizing Iranian oilfields and to rule out Iran"s possible alliance with the Axis powers.

Moreover, the deployment of Allied forces in Iran was called on to parry a hypothetical threat from pro-Axis Turkey and to outflank the Turkish army.

The United Kingdom and the U.S.S.R. invaded Iran after Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878-1944) refused to allow them to deploy their troops on

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