Earlier on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency that Moscow and Tehran have reached an agreement on the delivery of S-300 defense system to Iran.
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Iranian officials signed the deal on 19 August, finalising the sale of the missile systems.
In an interview with Sputnik, Mahmud Shuri, head of the research group on Eurasian region with the Tehran Center for Strategic Studies, stressed the significance of the bilateral deal on the S-300 systems.
Despite a ban on arms shipments to Iran under worldwide sanctions, Russian Federation appears willing to proceed with the sale of advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles to the country – in a development triggering objections from the Obama administration. “We have long expressed our concerns over reports of the possible sale of this missile system to the Iranians”, Pentagon spokesman Capt Jeff Davis told Fox News.
The announcement comes a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif visited Moscow in a sign of flourishing ties between the countries. The statement, which was conspicuously effusive in tone, described Iran as one of Russia’s “closest regional partners” with which a “high level of mutual understanding” and “intense practical cooperation” exists. A final nuclear deal was reached in July.
The S300 deal has been under discussion for more than five years.
Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted the ban on the S-300 supplies to Iran in April 2015 when six world powers confirmed significant progress after talks with Iran on the nuclear program in Lausanne, Switzerland. The move was met with criticism from Israel and the United States.
The S-300 is one of the most successful military products of the Russian defense industry, which has not only powerful missiles, but also high-performance radar.
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In September 2010, Russia’s then-president Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on measures to implement the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1929 of June 2010 to prohibit the supplies of S-300 to Iran. The system is “capable of shooting down medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) with a maximum range of 2,500 kilometers”.
