S-300 Delivery "Positive Sign" in Tehran-Moscow Cooperation: Shamkhani
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani on Wednesday hailed the Russian president's decision to deliver S-300 defense missile system to Iran as a good sign for future bilateral collaborations.
Moscow's decision on S-300 delivery is a positive sign from Russia for the expansion of its defense and security cooperation with Iran, Shamkhani said upon his arrival in Tehran after a two-day visit to the Russian capital.
His comments came after it was reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to lift the ban on the S-300 missile system delivery to Iran.
Putin issued a decree that lifts the ban "on transit through Russian territory, including airlift, and the export from the Russian Federation to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also the transfer to the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the territory of the Russian Federation, both by sea and by air, of air defense missile systems S-300," RIA Novosti reported on Monday.
Shamkhani on Tuesday said that Tehran expects Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to be supplied in 2015.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also commented on the decision, saying that Moscow's voluntary embargo on S-300 deliveries was no longer necessary due to the progress in Iran's nuclear talks recently made in the Swiss city of Lausanne.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) are in talks to hammer out a lasting accord that would end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran's peaceful nuclear energy program.
On April 2, they reached a framework nuclear agreement after more than a week of intensive negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland, with both sides committed to push for a final deal until the end of June.
