Russian Raids from Iranian Air Base Finished for Now, Tehran Says

Speaking at a session of the parliament on August 23, Larijani suggested Russian bombers were still using the military base in Hamadan.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi described the military cooperation at the airbase as having been a “provisional” arrangement between the two countries.

Russian Federation became the first foreign military since World War II to use Iranian soil to launch a military attack last week when long-range Tupolev-22M and Sukhoi Su-34 bombers took off from Hamedan air base.

Iran allowing Russian Federation to house its bombers represents “a major strategic shift in the Middle East” that’s likely to frustrate USA efforts to contain Iran’s influence in the region, said analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They conducted it and they are gone now”, he was quoted by the official news agency as saying.

22 had insisted that Russia’s use of the base was finished “for now”.

“Today, Iran has sided with the powerful Russian Federation due to its need for cooperating with this country in combating Takfiri terrorist plots”, Shamkhani said.

“The Iranians don’t mind helping out quietly”.

“It’s their elections. Everybody gets squeamish around election time”, he added.

Before using the Iranian airbase, Russian forces had been using the Khmeimim Airbase in Syria or its own bases in Russia.

The US State Department on Monday said that it was unclear if Moscow’s use of the airbase had “definitively stopped”.

He went on to say that the U.S. does know that Iran is supporting the Assad regime and working with Russian Federation to do so.

Iran is actively developing its own missile defenses (Bavar-373) in addition to purchasing Russian systems. That system is created to be the local equivalent of the S-300 – perhaps an Iranian signal back to Moscow that it’s capable of defending itself without the Russian missile system.

The United States has said it would use its veto power in the United Nations’ Security Council to block the possible sales of the fighter jets to Iran.