Iran said on Monday that Russian Federation has stopped using its Hamedan air base for carrying out air strikes at Islamic State strongholds in Syria.
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“It was a specific, authorised mission and it’s over for now”.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman says Russian Federation will stop using an Iranian air base for airstrikes in Syria for the time being. A Russian military spokesman said the planes had “carried out all their tasks with success” and were back on home territory.
Russian Federation announced Monday that it has stopped using the Hamadan airbase in Iran after carrying out a number of “successful airstrikes against rebels in Syria”.
Russia’s ambassador to Tehran, Levan Dzhagaryan, also confirmed to the Interfax news agency that all of Moscow’s warplanes have withdrawn from Iran, according to the AP.
“For the time being, there are no (Russians) remaining in Hamedan” airbase, he added.
His remarks reflect the Iranian authorities’ displeasure at the extent of publicity Russia’s use of an Iranian air base got last week.
Russian Federation entered the Syrian civil war late previous year on the side of Bashar al-Assad, the country’s president who is fighting several rebel groups that range in ideology from moderate to Islamist.
In his first comments on Russia’s use of the base, Kerry said: “You’ll have to ask the Iranians and the Russians why they made whatever decision they made to something I’m not sure anybody had admitted previously was in fact going on”.
“Therefore, it needed to refuel in an area closer to the operation. But we have definitely not given them a military base”, said Dehghan.
Moscow has short-range aircraft at an airbase outside the Syrian coastal city of Latakia and has launched cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea and Mediterranean.
Russian Federation and Iran did not have a formal agreement for the use of the base, but do have a number of agreements on collaboration against terrorism, the diplomat said.
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“In the next days our team will meet this week, and depending on where those discussions go, it is very possible, very likely, that Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov and I would meet”, he said.
