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Russia to finalize S-300 delivery to Iran in 2016: Official

A man walks past a Russian surface-to-air missile system S-300 displayed on Suvorovskaya Square in central Moscow on December 8, 2014. (©AFP)

Russia has reaffirmed its determination to honor all its obligations with regard to the timely delivery of S-300 air defense systems to Iran.

“Iran is fulfilling its obligations on advanced payments, while we are fulfilling our obligations on timely deliveries,” Vladimir Kozhin, President Vladimir Putin’s aide on military-technical cooperation said on Monday.

Kozhin said Moscow will continue the deliveries to Iran through 2016.

On December 3, Kozhin said Russia had started the shipment of its S-300 air defense systems to Iran as part of a long-running contract between Tehran and Moscow.

“The contract is being implemented, (deliveries of S-300s) are starting,” Russia’s TASS news agency quoted Kozhin as saying back then.

Russia committed to delivering the systems to Iran under a USD-800-million deal in 2007.

Moscow, however, refused to deliver the systems to Tehran in 2010 under the pretext that the agreement was covered by the fourth round of the United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. The resolution bars hi-tech weapons sales to Tehran.

Following Moscow’s refusal to deliver the systems, Iran filed a complaint against the relevant Russian arms firm with the International Court of Arbitration in Geneva.

In April this year, President Vladimir Putin lifted a previous ban on the delivery of S-300 to Iran.

On November 9, Russia signed a new contract to supply Iran with the systems by the end of the year for the first time since the 2010 freeze on supplies under the UN Security Council resolutions.

The development came after Iran and the P5+1 states – Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany – reached a landmark agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program in July.


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