Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Iraq, Russia in Talks Over S-300 Purchase


Mon 13 Jan 2020 | 10:45 PM
Yassmine Elsayed

Iraq's Ambassador to Tehran, Saad Jawad Qandil, confirmed that Baghdad is negotiating with Russia to purchase S-300 air defense missile systems, indicating that it is possible to get an agreement on this soon.

Speaking in an interview with "Sputnik", Qandil said that "the Iraqi-Russian relations are very good, in light of Baghdad's insistence on good relations with all neighboring countries." Ambassador qandil stressed: "Iraq is keen to persify arms sources, and we have armament contracts with Russia."

The S-300 is a series of initially Soviet and later Russian long range surface-to-air missile systems produced by NPO Almaz, based on the initial S-300P version. The S-300 system was developed to defend against aircraft and cruise missiles for the Soviet Air Defence Forces.

On the other hand, Qandil said that Baghdad recognizes Iran's right to respond to the assassination of the Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, with an American raid in Baghdad, but not on Iraqi soil.

He added: "We do not want Iraq to be an arena for international conflicts between different sides."

On another hand, he considered that Tehran's informing Baghdad of a missile strike on bases in Iraq does not justify violating Iraqi sovereignty.

He pointed out that Tehran has not yet provided a response to the statements denouncing the move, which was formally submitted by Baghdad to the Iranian ambassador to Iraq, and said: "We summoned the Iranian Chargé d'Affairs to Baghdad and informed him of the need to keep Iraq away from the battlefield and not to take the Iraqi territories a place to confrontations between the American and Iranian sides. So far, we have not received an official response from the Iranian authorities on this matter. "