‘Iran can take legal action over Russian missiles’

TEHRAN: Iran can take legal action against Russia if it fails to honour a deal to supply Tehran with an advanced air defence missile system, a top general said on Tuesday.
Russia, Tehran’s sole ally among world powers, has so far not delivered the S-300 missiles to Tehran, in a delay which Iranian officials blame on growing pressure on Moscow from Washington and Iran’s arch-foe Israel.
“The Russians are under the pressure of the Zionist lobby and America and so have not fulfilled their commitments,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Brigadier-General Mohammad Hassan Mansourian as saying.
“As this is an official agreement it can be pursued through international legal bodies,” said Mansourian, the deputy head of Iran’s air defences.
On November 11, the Iranian armed forces chief of staff, General Hassan Firouzabadi, said that Russia was now six months late in delivering the missiles.
It was the first time that an Iranian official had spoken of a delivery date for the missile system, under a deal which has never been officially confirmed by Moscow.
Earlier in the month, Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi urged Russia to ignore Israeli pressure to scrap the deal and to honour its obligations.
“We have a contract with Russia to buy S-300 missiles. I don’t think it is right for Russia to be seen in the world as a country which does not fulfil its contractual obligations,” Vahidi said at the time. “Russia has to fulfil the contract and not be influenced by Zionist pressure.”
Last month, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that Iran had not yet paid for the missiles because Moscow has not given its final approval for the deal, which has set alarm bells ringing in the West.
Under the contract, Russia would sell Iran five batteries of S-300PMU1 missiles for around 800 million dollars, Interfax reported.
The S-300PMU1 — codenamed the SA-20 Gargoyle by Nato — is a mobile land-based system designed to shoot down aircraft and cruise missiles.
Western governments fear Iran could use the system to boost defences around its nuclear sites against any Israeli or US air strike.
Neither country has excluded the possibility of military action to prevent the Islamic republic acquiring an atomic bomb, an ambition which Iranian officials strongly deny.