Iran Expects Russian S-300 Missile System Delivery in 2015
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani said on Tuesday that Tehran expects Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to be supplied in 2015.
"I think that it will be delivered this year," the Russian TASS news agency quoted Shamkhani as saying.
His comment came after it was reported on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to lift the ban on the S-300 missile system delivery to Iran.
"(The Russian presidential) decree lifts the ban on transit through Russian territory, including airlift, and the export from the Russian Federation to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also the transfer to the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the territory of the Russian Federation, both by sea and by air, of air defense missile systems S-300," the report said.
Shamkhani said that Putin's decision was "a kind of a signal for ensuring security in the region given Iran's important role in this."
On Monday, Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said Russia’s decision to repeal the ban signifies the political will of leaders in Tehran and Moscow to promote cooperation in all fields.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also commented on the decision, saying that Moscow’s voluntary embargo on S-300 deliveries was no longer necessary, due to the progress in Iran’s nuclear talks recently made in the Swiss city of Lausanne.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) are in talks to hammer out a lasting accord that would end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran’s peaceful nuclear energy program.
On April 2, they reached a framework nuclear agreement after more than a week of intensive negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland, with both sides committed to push for a final deal until the end of June.
