Some 150 Daesh terrorists, including foreign fighters, have been killed as a result of Russia’s strikes on Wednesday, the ministry said.
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It said its Iranian-based bombers had been escorted by fighter jets based at Russia’s Hmeymim air base in Syria’s Latakia Province.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday that Iraq, which lies between Iran and Syria, had granted Russian Federation permission to use its air space, on the condition that the planes use corridors along Iraq’s borders and refrain from flying over Iraqi cities.
Lavrov says “there has been no supply, sale or transfer of combat jets to Iran” and insisted that the Russian Air Force’s presence in Iran is only about using its facilities. According to a US official who does not have the authorization to share the matter with reporters spoke on condition of anonymity saying that there were no remaining Russian forces stationed in Iran and that the Russian warplanes have returned to Russia.
On Tuesday long-range Russian Tupolev-22M3 bombers and Sukhoi-34 fighter bombers used Iran’s Hamadan air base to strike a range of targets in Syria for the first time, in a move underscoring Moscow’s increasingly close ties with Tehran. This is the first time Russian troops have been significantly stationed in the middle east after the invasion of Iran by Allied-Soviet and British forces to secure oil fields in a bid to keep Allied supply lines open. “We have good cooperation with Russian Federation and we say it loud and clear”, Larijani was quoted by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency as having said. Russian Federation has also never used the territory of another country in the Middle East for its operations inside Syria, where it has been carrying out an aerial campaign in support of President Bashar Assad’s government for almost a year.
The city has been divided into a rebel-held eastern part and a government-controlled western part since 2012, and is now the focal point of the civil war.
The comments by Ali Larijani, reported on Wednesday by the state-run IRNA news agency, seem geared at easing domestic concerns over the strikes.
The announcement from Russian Federation marks the first significant stationing of its troops in Iran since World War II.
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After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s constitution bans the construction of any foreign military base in the country.
