Iran denies acquisition of Russian S-300
Mon, 01 Sep 2008 17:23:41 GMT
Russia's S-300 batteries
Iran's Foreign Ministry has denied reports that Tehran has purchased the S-300 system, an advanced Russian-made anti-aircraft missile.
When asked in a Monday press conference whether Iran had recently acquired the sophisticated system, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said, "No such thing is correct."
The Sunday Telegraph had reported that US intelligence believes the crisis in the Caucasus is likely to prompt Russia to sell the S-300 system to Iran.
George Friedman, director of a leading private intelligence agency in the US, told the paper that the anti-aircraft system would effectively rule out Israeli air raids and 'seriously complicate any US aerial bombings'.
"This is a system that scares every Western air force," the paper quoted Dan Goure, a long-time Pentagon advisor, as saying.
Tel Aviv has threatened to launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities under the pretext that Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has plans to develop nuclear weapons.
This is while the UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Iran enriches uranium-235 to a level of 3.7 percent - a rate consistent with the construction of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear arms production requires an enrichment level of above 90 percent.
Israeli intelligence officials have warned that the system could further enhance Iran's defensive capabilities, which would complicate a possible attack on Iran's 'numerous, distant, and fortified' nuclear sites.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (L) during a recent meeting with Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Dushanbe
Qashqavi said Iran's missile and technical capabilities are the outcome of a homegrown technology developed by Iranian scientists. "This technology was recently demonstrated," the Iranian spokesman added.
In early July, Iran held an extensive military drill, during which the armed forces test-fired upgraded Iranian-made Shahab-3 missile equipped with a one-ton conventional warhead and capable of hitting targets within a 2,000-kilometer range.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) organized the drill shortly after Israel conducted an air maneuver over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece in early June in what was considered as preparation for a war with Iran.
Pentagon officials claimed the Israeli maneuver, in which over 100 Israeli F-16s and F-15s participated, was a 'dress rehearsal' for an aerial bombardment of Iranian nuclear facilities.
The exercise spanned some 900 miles, roughly the distance between their airfields and a nuclear enrichment facility in the central Iranian city of Natanz.