Report: Russia Sending MiGs to Syria

"Syria / Lebanon"

06/19/2007

Associated Press | June 19, 2007


MOSCOW - Russia has started delivery of top-of-the-line fighter jets to Syria under a new deal estimated to be worth US$1 billion, a newspaper said Tuesday - but the report was quickly denied by the state arms trader.

The business daily Kommersant said that Russia had begun delivering five MiG-31E jets under a deal apparently negotiated during Syrian President Bashar Assad's trip to Moscow last autumn.

Commenting on the report, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement that "all of Russia's deals in the sphere of military-technical cooperation comply with international law and Russia's obligations under various treaties and United Nations resolutions." He would not elaborate.

But Sergei Chemezov, head of state arms-trading monopoly Rosoboronexport, flatly denied the Kommersant report. "Russia has no plans to deliver fighter jets to Syria and Iran," Chemezov said at a Paris air show, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russia has shrugged off U.S. and Israeli criticism of its previous weapons deals with Syria and Iran, saying the deals complied with international law.

The contract with Syria will be the first export deal for the MiG-31E, a heavy twin-engined interceptor fighter capable of flying at nearly three times the speed of sound and simultaneously shooting several targets at ranges of up to 180 kilometers (over 110 miles) away.

The aircraft was designed in the 1980s for tackling low-flying cruise missiles and other difficult targets and remains the mainstay of Russia's air defenses. "In the Soviet Union, the MiG-31 was considered a key component of defenses against a possible U.S. attack," Kommersant said.

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