Iran hopes that Russia will fulfill its contract for the supply of S-300 air defense missile systems, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Russia signed a contract with Iran on the supply of S-300 air defense systems to the Islamic Republic in December 2005. However, there have been no official reports on the start of the contract’s implementation.
“Russia is under an obligation [to fulfill the S-300 contract] and an official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry has recently said that Russia has always taken its obligations very seriously,” the ISNA news agency quoted Ramin Mehmanparast as saying.
“We hope that Russia will fulfill its promises as soon as possible,” the diplomat said.
A senior Iranian military official said earlier on Tuesday that Iran could sue Russia in an international court if Moscow refused to fulfill its commitments on the delivery of S-300 to Tehran.
“Because this is an official agreement, it can be pursued through international legal bodies,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Brigadier General Mohammad Hassan Mansourian, deputy chief of Iran’s air defense, as saying.
Iran suspects that Russia has refused so far to fulfill the S-300 contract due to pressure from Washington and Tel Aviv.
Both the U.S. and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program and have expressed concern over the S-300 deliveries, which would significantly strengthen Iran’s air defenses.
The latest version of the S-300 series is the S-300PMU2 Favorit, which has a range of up to 195 kilometers (about 120 miles) and can intercept aircraft and ballistic missiles at altitudes from 10 meters to 27 kilometers.
It is considered one of the world’s most effective all-altitude regional air defense systems, comparable in performance to the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot system.
