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Obama downplays concerns over S-300 deliveries to Iran

US president stressed that Washington hopes for a deal on Iran’s nuclear program that would guarantee security of US allies in the Middle East

WASHINGTON, April 22. /TASS/. Russia’s sale of S-300 missile systems to Iran will not be a problem for Washington, US President Barack Obama told MSNBC on Tuesday.

"Even if they’ve got some air defense systems, if we had to, we could penetrate them," Obama said.

The US president stressed that Washington hopes for a deal on Iran’s nuclear program that would guarantee security of US allies in the Middle East, particularly Israel and Saudi Arabia.

On April 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to permit the supplies of S-300 systems to Iran. The decree was effective immediately.

The Kremlin remains uncertain when the air defense systems may begin to be delivered to Iran but at the same time points out that no obstructions to that exist at the moment.

Agreement on Iran’s nuclear program

On April 2, Iran and P5+1 group (Russia, US, UK, China, France and Germany) reached a breakthrough agreement in Switzerland’s Lausanne on restricting Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for gradual lifting of sanctions. The deadline for coordinating the final agreement is June 30.

According to the deal, Iran will not enrich uranium no higher than to 3.67% for the next 15 years. Tehran will also cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium from around 10 tons to 300 kilograms. Iran agreed not to set up new facilities for uranium enrichment in the next 15 years, and vowed not to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and conduct research in this sphere.