Iran, Russia To Sign Multibillion Military Cooperation Deal: Local Media

Russia expects to have a serious development with Iran in the field of military-technical cooperation after the United Nations Security Council sanctions are lifted, Vladimir Kozhin, the Russian presidential aide on military-technical cooperation, told local media.

Kozhin said that Russia was expecting “very large projects” after the removal of the sanctions.

“They really need serious upgrade of their entire armed force; taking into account that it is a large country with large armed forces, of course, the talk will be about very large contracts, worth billions," Russian News Agency Tass quoted Kozhin as saying, while he mentioned that Iran’s interest in such deals were “huge.”

Kozhin earlier said that Russia was going to deliver S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran. The delivery of the missile systems is a part of a Russia-Iran contract which has so far been delayed because of the sanctions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier lifted a ban on selling such air defense missile systems to Iran. A new contract on the supply of the systems was struck in early November. While it was reported Iran was going to buy the S-300PMU-2 variant, Kozhin said Tehran was interested in all kinds of Russian armaments.

Iran is going to sign a $3 billion contract with a group of Indian companies to develop the Farzad B gas field in the Persian Gulf, according to the Mehr news agency.

While the Falat Ghare oil company said the Indian companies could resume development once the sanctions were lifted, one of the Indian companies in the reported partnership said there was no confirmation from Iran on development rights yet.

ONGC Videsh’s Managing Director N.K. Verma told Reuters the first phase of development of the Farzad B gas field would cost around $3 billion.