Russian Federation has stopped using an Iranian air base for launching airstrikes on Syria for the time being, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday, just hours after the Iranian defense minister criticized Moscow for having “kind of show-off and ungentlemanly” attitude by publicizing their actions. All of a sudden, it was reported that Russian Federation was not using the Iranian base anymore.
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It was the first time Russian Federation has used the territory of another nation, apart from Syria itself, to launch such strikes since Moscow started a bombing campaign against the IS targets inside Syria in September a year ago.
According to the Military Balance 2016 report issued by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Iranian Air Force’s air defense units operate 250 FM-80 (a licensed Chinese copy of the Crotale SAM system), 30 Rapier, 15 Tigercat, over 150 MIM-23B I-Hawk, 45 S-75 Dvina, 10 S-200 Angara (SA-5 Gammon), and 29 9K331 Tor-M1 (SA-15 Gauntlet) surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems.
Moscow did not comment publicly on Monday on Tehran’s comments. To crown it all, there are many people in Iran who are directly opposed to building close cooperation with Russian Federation.
“Whatever the reason behind the sudden announcement that Russian Federation is finished for now operating…the fact is the incident has already served its main objective”, said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and the Jamestown Foundation.
At the same time, we should support the national Air Force.
Toner last week criticized Russia’s use of the Iranian base, though he acknowledged that Moscow gave a brief advance warning before conducting raids from the base.
“Iran has brought powerful Russian Federation along. due to its need to cooperate with Syria” in the fight against militants, Shamkhani added. Iran was not particularly happy about Russia’s public boast about its use of the airbase – the presence of foreign powers in Iran has always been a sticky issue, both historically and constitutionally. However, Iranian government’s focus is on acquiring the capability and technology to produce the systems in-country rather than depending on Russian Federation for weapons.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) made this statement following the news that Russian bomber aircraft launched from an airbase in Iran.
Russia’s fighter jets have not halted flights from an Iranian airbase into Syria to pound militants, Iran’s Majlis (Parliament) Speaker Ali Larijani said on Tuesday. A significant part of Iranian MPs were against it. The decision to allow Russian jets to fly from Iran came after the news of rebels breaking the siege of Aleppo – a closer logistical Russo-Iranian cooperation signals a joint stepped-up effort to fight anti-Assad forces.
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“Russian aviation provides perhaps the only cover that Iranian soldiers have in Syria”. But the fact that it happened at all was sure to have raised eyebrows in Riyadh, Ankara and Washington.
