A prominent Iranian lawmaker has confirmed that Russian Federation is using Iran’s Shahid Nojeh Air Base for airstrikes in Syria.
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Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday that it launched the strikes from near the Iranian city of Hamedan and struck targets in three provinces in northern and eastern Syria.
Toner said that Russia’s increased cooperation with Iran would not preclude further discussions with Russian Federation on a possible agreement.
“There is no doubt that the Russian intervention has significantly changed the military dynamic in Syria”, Jeffrey White, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the Monitor in February, calling air strikes “the most obvious element in this”.
The U.S. military said it was informed in advance about Russia’s bombing runs out of Iran, and the strikes “did not impact coalition operations in either Iraq or Syria during the time”.
Both Russia and the Iran-backed regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may have violated global law by dropping incendiary bombs over civilian areas in Syria in recent weeks, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“The main task is to finally establish coordination in resolving the Syrian crisis.We are discussing this through military, intelligence and foreign ministries”, Lavrov said Wednesday at a press conference after meeting with his New Zealand counterpart Murray McCully in Moscow.
Mr Lavrov was responding to comments by Mark Toner, a United States State Department spokesman, who said the move “could very well be a violation” of Security Council resolution 2231, which bans the sale or supply of military technology including fast jets to Iran.
Army Col. Chris Garver said Russian Federation notified the US through a deconfliction channel that it planned to fly from Iran through Iraq to strike targets in Syria and then go back.
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov escalated the war of words, denying that operating from Iran violated the resolution.
Iran considers the agenda to develop ties with the Eastern countries and focused on strategic ties with Russian Federation and China to advance its new foreign policy, he said.
The Russo-Iranian decision to enhance the level of military cooperation between the two countries to combat terrorists in Syria and the deployment of Russia’s Tu-22M3 supersonic long-range strategic bombers at the Hamadan airfield caught the West off guard.
The chairman of the lower house’s global affairs committee, Alexey Pushkov, was commenting on remarks by Mark Toner, a spokesman for the US Department of State.
Velayati emphasized that Iran is supporting Syria at the request of the Damascus government, in the same way that it has been offering help to Iraq on request. “We haven’t made an assessment”, he added.
Top Iranian officials said on Wednesday that the arrangement is legal because it only extends to permission to refuel.
More than 290,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the beginning of Syria’s civil war, which started in 2011 with anti-regime protests.
Larijani further said Iran is cooperating militarily with Russian Federation as an ally in the Middle East and this does not mean that Iran is giving Russian Federation a military base.
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It is believed as well as killing the fighters, two command posts and two large terrorist training camps were eliminated in the strike.
