The Russian defence ministry said on Monday that as long as Iran agreed, Russia could use the Iranian air base again, “depending on the situation” in Syria. Russian Federation and Iran are providing crucial military support to Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad against opposition groups in Syria’s five-year-old conflict. “They came, they went and they finished it”. Russian military analyst Viktor Murakhovskiy told the website Sobesednik that using the Kalibr from the Caspian was overkill, since it is intended for larger targets that ISIS possesses, and Russia has means of attacking Syria that are much more convenient.
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The Russian Defense Ministry says all Russian warplanes that were based in Iran, from which they launched airstrikes in Syria, have returned back to Russia.
The abruptness of the termination, even if temporary, also suggested that the Russians, eager to show widening influence in the Middle East, had seriously misread how a public announcement of their use of the Hamadan base in western Iran would reverberate among Iranians.
His remarks reflect the Iranian authorities’ displeasure at the extent of publicity Russia’s use of an Iranian air base got last week.
Last year, Russian Federation said it had gotten permission beforehand from Iraq and Iran to use their airspace, but didn’t announce that ahead of the launch.
Russian Federation has suddenly stopped using an Iranian airbase to launch airstrikes in Syria.
Indications are that this is at least in part the result of Iranian annoyance at Russian Federation for publicizing the use of the air base. Iranian officials only confirmed Russia’s presence a day later.
The short-lived nature of the arrangement could also be a sign of how Iran’s and Russia’s overlapping regional interests haven’t been perfectly aligned, Mr. Kupchan said. The decision from Iran came within days after Russian Federation went public about the use of one of Tehran’s airbase in Hamadan.
The deployment to the airfield in Hamedan was the first time since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 that Iran has allowed a foreign power to use one of its military bases.
Over the weekend, photographs of President Hassan Rouhani were published in Iranian state media near a Bavar-373 missile defense system.
The United States has said it would use its veto power in the U.N. Security Council to block the possible sales of the fighter jets to Iran.
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Washington and Moscow have been in contact for weeks over establishing military cooperation to fight the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria.
