Minister of Foreign Affairs of Syria Walid Muallem said that Russia would deliver S-300 air defense systems to Syria in the near term, RIA Novosti reports.

“We will take delivery of the systems and other high-quality weapons in the near term”, — Muallem said in his interview to Al-Akhbar. According to him, the deliveries have been postponed, because the parties have to settle a number of bureaucratic formalities first.

Muallem explained that Syria asked for deliveries of S-300 systems, because the country is concerned about the plans of US president Barack Obama.

“We understand that due to internal reasons Obama is willing to avoid war with Syria and his anti-ISIL efforts are limited to airstrikes. We don’t know how Obama will act under increasing pressure, so we have to be prepared,” the minister said. “We asked Russia to deliver high-quality weapons to Syria,” Muallem said.

Earlier Moscow said that implementation of the contract for delivery of S-300 systems to Damascus has been put on hold.

On September 23rd 2014 USA with the assistance of its allies (including Arabian countries) started carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State terrorist group in Syria; similar operation was started in Iraq in August. At that USA carries out airstrikes without permission of Syrian government.

Washington supports the so-called “moderate opposition” in Syria, which is fighting against government and ISIL terrorist group. US president Barack Obama said that he would not use army to fight the extremists.