A senior Iranian lawmaker urges Moscow to "stand by its commitments" after the Kremlin made a snap decision to freeze the sale of the S-300 defense system to Tehran. In the wake of a UN Security Council decision to impose fresh sanctions on Iran, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has reportedly assured fellow Western leaders that Moscow would shelve a long-stalled deal to deliver the S-300 air-defense missiles to the government in Tehran.
Deputy Head of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Esmail Kowsari reacted to the sudden decision made by the Kremlin on Saturday, asserting that Russia is "bound by an agreement to provide Iran with the advanced defense system."
"Russia should abide by agreements made between the two countries and deliver the system to Iran," Kowsari told Mehr news agency on Saturday.
"But if they end up refusing to deliver the systems, we are well capable of producing missile defense systems that are very much similar to Russia's S-300 apparatus," he noted, referring to plans in Iran to develop an air defense system that is reported to be comparable to and even more sophisticated than the advanced Russian S-300 system.
Russia signed a contract to sell Iran at least five S-300 air-defense systems in 2005, but has since wavered between delivering the systems to Tehran and Washington's demands for the deal to be scrapped altogether.
Codenamed 'the SA-20 Gargoyle' by NATO, the S-300 system is a mobile land-based system designed to detect and shoot down aircraft within a 120 km (75 miles) distance.
If delivered, military experts believe SA-20 would make Iranian nuclear sites 'invincible' in the face of any attack, notably aerial saturation bombings that could be carried out by Israel.