Tehran, YJC. Iranian diplomat has said that Tehran is hopeful that Moscow will deliver sophisticated S-300 air defense system to Iran this year.
Iran's Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanaee quoted by Sputnik
news agency as saying in a press conference in Moscow said, "I hope that our
Russian friends will deliver this defense system to Iran in 2015.”
Based on a contract signed in 2007, Moscow is required to
provide Tehran with at least five S-300 defense system units.
In 2010, then-president Dmitry Medvedev cancelled the
contract as he came under strong US and Israeli pressure not to go ahead with
the sale of the weapons system, but his pretext was that the sale was covered
by the fourth round of the UN Security Council sanctions against Iran.
Moreover, the ambassador said on January 27 that Iran
regards the S-300 contract as legitimate and does not deem it subject to
international sanctions, since it was signed before the restrictive measures
imposed on the country.
On January 20, the defense ministers from Iran and Russia came
to agreement to push for the settlement of the lingering dispute over Russia’s
failure to honor its commitments under the sale contract.
The agreement was made at a meeting between Iran’s Defense
Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan and the Russian Minister of Defense
General Sergei Shoigu in the Iranian capital.