(CNSNews.com) – The Russian government sees no problem selling weapons, including advanced anti-aircraft systems, to Iran, saying that arms sales are fine so long as there is no U.N. weapons embargo on the Islamic Republic.
According to a Jan. 28 report from the Russian news agency Interfax – translated by BBC Worldwide Monitoring – Russia’s state-owned arms trading company Rosoboronexport will continue selling weapons to Iran because there is no international prohibition against it.
“There are no international sanctions against Iran,” Anatoliy Isaykin, the company’s director-general said. “Therefore there are formally no bans against supplying any kind of arms to Iran.”
According to the report, Rosoboronexport has a contract to supply Iran with S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, considered to be one of the most advanced in the world and capable of defending against aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.
The system can simultaneously track up to 100 targets and fire on as many as 12 at a time from a distance of 120 miles.
“Iran has remained our partner for a long period of time,” Isaykin said. “There has not been a single instance of the commitments outlined in [arms] contracts being breached [by Iran].”
According to Isaykin, there has also never been an instance of Iran supplying any Russian weapons to terrorists or other outside groups.