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NIZHNY TAGIL (Sverdlovsk Region), September 9. /TASS/. The new contract on supplying Russian S-300 missile systems to Iran will be signed in the nearest future, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Wednesday.
"There are no problems with Iran in this sphere. As far as I know, the contract will soon be signed. All political decisions have already been made," Ryabkov said at the sidelines of the Russian Arms Expo - 2015 (RAE-2015) that opened today in Nizhny Tagil answering a question on whether there are problems in talks between Iran and Russia on S-300.
Ryabkov stressed that the contract will be signed in any case. Answering a question on whether Russia really insists on recalling the lawsuit that Tehran filed against Russia in connection with suspending the previous contract, the deputy foreign minister noted: "In our position, there is really an element of recalling the lawsuit. However, implementation and parameters of the new contract are commercial aspects." "The Foreign Ministry cannot comment in place of specialists on what is going on there," he added.
Russia-Iran S-300 contract
Under the 2007 contract, Moscow was to deliver to Tehran five divisions of the missile systems of medium range worth over $800 million. The Iranian side paid $166.8 million in advance. However, until mid-2010 the systems were not supplied to Iran.
In September 2010, then-President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on measures on implementing the UN Security Council’s resolution 1929 that in particular banned the S-300 supplies to Iran. The contract was severed and the advance payment was sent back to the Islamic Republic.
Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted the ban on the S-300 supplies to Iran in April 2015. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia’s voluntary embargo on deliveries of S-300 missile systems to Iran is no longer needed due to progress in the resolution of the situation around Iran’s nuclear program.