Tehran continues to develop its economic cooperation with Moscow in various areas.
Photo: titraval.ir
Iran will purchase 12 Sukhoi Superjet 100 planes in the near future, Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak said in an interview to the Russia-24 TV-channel after his visit to the Islamic Republic. Fragments of the interview were shown on Wednesday.
“We have received confirmation that Iran is interested to buy 12 Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft in the near future,” Novak said.
According to the minister, Russia is also interested to start mass production of components for Russian aircraft in Iran, and is ready to consider an appropriate offer.
In addition, as Novak noted, Moscow has offered Tehran to launch joint production of the modernized IL-114 turboprop aircraft. Currently, the sides shape “concrete solutions and proposals.”
At the same time, as the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported, citing Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the country plans to sign an agreement for sale of 100,000 barrels of oil per day to Russia.
“Iran announced on Tuesday it will begin selling 100,000 barrels of oil a day to Russia within the next 15 days and receive payment half in cash and half in goods and services,” the news agency reported.
Reportedly, the detailed information on the deal was announced by Zanganeh after his meeting with Novak in Tehran.
“Of course we were ready to sign the contract tonight but our Russian counterpart was in a hurry and had to go to the airport,” Zanganeh noted, adding that a number of Russian companies have already signed memorandums on mutual understanding with Iranian companies.
In addition, on Monday, the Kommersant newspaper reported that Russian Rostec State Corporation intends to finish building of a thermal electric power station in Crimea this year, if it can agree with Iran on imports of turbines from the country.
According to CEO of Rostec, Sergey Chemezov, the negotiations are in “the final stage,” and the turbines will be installed until the end of the year, unless there are no new Western sanctions. Chemezov did not disclose any possible Iranian supplier or characteristics of the turbines. However, the newspaper supposed that the supplier will be the largest producer of power equipment in Iran, Mapna Company.
Until now, the issue on purchasing of gas turbines for the Crimean power station was open, as foreign suppliers, the most likely of which was German Siemens, were risking to become an object of the sanctions. As the newspaper noted, most likely, Iranian turbines are produced by Mapna Company on the license of Siemens. However, as lawyers noted, there are much less sanction risks for the Germans in this case, and supply of the equipment from Iran can lead only to judicial dispute between Siemens and Mapna.
According to resolution 2231 Iran will have to wait years before it can get the Sukhoi jets, there is not a snowballs chance in hell that the U.S. will allow it before the conventional arms ban expires. On another note, I don’t understand why Iran doesn’t purchase some passenger jets from Russia instead of Boeing. I forget the name of the manufacturer, but I recall that Russia announced a medium range, passenger Jet production line.
Sukhoi Superjet is a civilian aircraft