Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov didn’t agree with a suggestion that decision on deliveries of S-300 air defense systems to Iran was a political mistake, TASS reports.
“Deliveries of S-300 systems to Iran were never prohibited neither by UN Secutirty Council nor by unilateral sanctions imposed by USA and EU, - the minister reminded. – The contract was put on hold by Russia in response to request of our western partners, who said that this move will make Iran take a more constructive position in the course of negotiations”. “But it’s been a long time since that moment and we believe that positive results and agreements reached in Lausanne are good enough for us to encourage Iran to continue cooperation. But this time we are going to encourage them by lifting our unilateral ban instead of putting the deliveries of S-300 systems on hold. And by means of starting the implementation of this contract,” Lavrov said.
“In terms of the region’s security, these S-300 systems do not threat anyone, - the Russian minister noted. – They are not causing troubles to anyone unless someone wants to bomb Iran”. According to him, “such situations are possible and we saw it recently, for example, in Yemen”. “That is why defense systems, which prevent risks and decrease willingness to carry out military strikes, are in line with our position – for many years we have been promoting idea of creating a regional security system in the Persian Gulf region with the participation of all the Arab countries and Iran,” Lavrov explained.
“I absolutely disagree with those, who says that delivery of S-300 was a political mistake,” the minister said. He recalled the words of US President Barack Obama, who was surprised that “Russians waited for five years before continuing this procedure”. “The world’s reaction to our decision to resume the implementation of the contract with Iran was not an alarming one. In general, it was reasonable, objective and reflected the understanding of justifiability and even imminence of this move by respectably analysts,” he added.
The President of Russia Vladimir Putin lifted the ban on deliveries of S-300 air defense systems to Iran on April 13th 2015. During the telephone call-in show held on April 16th the President reminded that the decision to put the deliveries on hold was taken in connection with a dispute related to Iran's nuclear program, however, now Teheran is “demonstrating a great flexibility and commitment to reaching an agreement”.
Putin noted, that exactly this scenario caused Russia to lift the ban imposed earlier, and stated that this decision must not be viewed as a “removal of sanctions”, because S-300 systems were not included in the Iran-related sanctions list of UN.
“We put the implementation of this contract on hold purely on a unilateral basis. And now, when there is a progress in these talks we don’t see any reasons to keep this ban any longer,” the President said. He added that in terms of goods included in the sanctions list Russia will act together with other countries. Deliveries of S-300 systems to Iran are “absolutely not threating Israel”; these systems are a deterrent, taking into account situation in the region, Russian President said.
