Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani brought up the topic Tuesday as lawmakers gathered in Tehran for the body’s opening session, a day after Iranian officials announced Russia’s use of the Shahid Nojeh Air Base has stopped for the time being.
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“The Russian Defense Ministry last week sent a request to Iraq and Iran for the use of the airspace of these countries for the flight of ballistic missiles”, a military source told the Russian news agency Interfax on Monday.
Relations between the two countries, long cordial, appeared to reach a new level last September when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a military intervention in Syria in support of Assad. Russia’s use of the airbase was the first time in more than 70 years that Iran took such a step. “We need to strengthen our Air Force”, he said. With both Iran and Russian Federation supporting Syria’s Assad to the hilt, and the USA and other western powers, acting in sync with Sunni powers in the region like Saudi Arabia, the arch rival of Iran, the stage now seems set for a new proxy war after the exit of the Islamic State, the common enemy of both the camps.
Iran said on Monday that Russian Federation has stopped using an Iranian air base for strikes in Syria, a week after Moscow announced that its fighter bombers had flown from a base in Iran to hit targets in Syria.
It was not clear why the agreement appeared to unravel so soon, and experts and USA officials cautioned that it remains to be verified via satellite images that Russia’s operations from Iran have stopped.
Dehghan’s remarks also suggest Russian Federation and Iran initially agreed to keep Moscow’s use of the air base quiet. While the US and Europe have repeatedly called for Assad’s ouster, Russian Federation and Iran are backing him in the civil war that has killed more than 280,000 people and displaced millions.
It is illegal under Iran’s constitution to give military bases to foreign armies. It said it was looking into whether the move was a violation of UN Security Council resolution 2231, which forbids the supply, sale and transfer of combat aircraft to Iran.
Iran revokes its permission for Russian planes to use the air base because of “ungentlemanly” behavior of Kremlin. Irans minister of defense, Brig.
The about-face and the explanation for it from Iran’s Foreign Ministry seemed to surprise Russian Federation, where state news media had been trumpeting the deal as a sign of a growing friendship with Iran.
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Dehghan said that Tehran has shown interest in buying Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets, adding that the response from Moscow “has not been negative so far”.
