News / Defense

1st S-300 shipment to head to Iran in coming days: Russia official

Tuesday, 05 April 2016 9:56 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 05 April 2016 9:55 AM ]

Russian Foreign Ministry official Zamir Kabulov

A senior Russian official says Moscow is to deliver the first shipment of its S-300 air defense systems to Iran in the coming days as part of a long-running contract between Tehran and Moscow.

“I don’t know if this will happen today, but they (the consignments) will be loaded [for shipment to Iran],” Zamir Kabulov, a department chief at the Russian Foreign Ministry, was quoted by Russia’s Interfax news agency as saying on Tuesday.

In mid-February, the official had said that Moscow would deliver the surface-to-air missile systems to the Islamic Republic in “the nearest time.”

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 sanctions barred hi-tech weapons sales to Tehran.

The file photo shows an S-300 surface-to-air missile system deployed during joint Russian-Belarusian military exercises.

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

In April 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted a previous ban on the delivery of S-300 to Iran, and in November last year, Russia signed a new contract to supply Iran with the systems by the end of that year for the first time since the 2010 freeze on supplies under the Security Council resolutions.

The long-overdue delivery has not happened, yet.

Recent pledges to make the delivery came after Iran and the P5+1 states — Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany — reached a landmark agreement, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on Tehran’s nuclear program in July last year.

Under the JCPOA, all nuclear-related economic and financial bans against the Islamic Republic are lifted.

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