Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan on Monday attacked publications of the Russian military press that reported the use of Iran’s air base. Yet while pushing a couple of bombers and some tactical aircraft to an Iranian base for a short period of time may have large geopolitical implications, it has few tactical ones.
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Russian combat aviation will no longer be using Iran’s Hamadan air base in the fight against Islamic State militants in Syria, according to an announcement made Monday by Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Many assumed that the deployment of Russian military aircraft in Iran came as a sign of a higher level of military and political partnership between Russia and Iran.
For Russia’s part, its decision to use the Shahid Nojeh military airbase in western Iran underscores its calculation that bolstering its almost year-long overt military intervention – which began dramatically with Russia airstrikes launched from a base in the Syrian coastal town of Latakia – can help tip the battlefield in Assad’s favor.
Gen. Dehghan, in a darkly amusing twist given the deadly support of Iran for terrorist activities throughout the Middle East, even called Russia’s rhetoric about the Iranian base “ungentlemanly”.
Further use of the Hamadan airbase would be based on mutual agreements on fighting terrorism and the evolving situation in Syria, the spokesman said.
Russian war planes had been using the Shahid Nojeh Air Base to refuel and launch operations in Syria in support of dictator Bashar al-Assad, a longtime ally of both Russia and Iran, for the past week.
Iran has also discussed with Russia, the production licensing of the Russian T-90 tank inside Iran. 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.
On Monday, state TV quoted Dehghan as saying that Russian Federation “will use the base for a very short and fixed span, corresponding (to) operation in Syria”.
“Naturally the Russians would like to show that they are a superpower and an influential country and that they are present in all the security developments of the region and the world”, he said.
But a day after the airstrikes began, Mr. Larijani, the parliament speaker, said cooperation with Russian Federation didn’t mean Iran was handing Moscow ownership of one of its bases.
“The Iranians don’t mind helping out quietly”.
Russia’s ambassador to Tehran, Levan Dzhagaryan, said in an interview with Interfax that Tehran’s move on Monday does not mean that the Russians can’t use the Iranian base again.
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The foreign use of military installations is forbidden by Iran’s constitution. And, on Sunday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani was proudly standing in front of the country’s indigenously developed Bavar 373 missile defence system.
