Russian Foreign Ministry: Defensive armaments not to destabilize situation in Transcaucasia

Russia will never supply arms to any region of the world, if these supplies could lead to destabilization of the situation, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, commenting on the possible sale of S-300 systems to Azerbaijan.

However, defensive armaments will not destabilize the situation," Lavrov said in an interview with Public Television of Armenia.

There are opinions that, if any country receives S-300 systems, it destabilizes the situation, however, S-300 complexes are defensive armaments and designed to protect the relevant territory from missile attacks, Lavrov explained.

According to several media outlets, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry and Rosoboronexport allegedly signed a contract on the delivery of two S-300PMU-2 Favorit (SA-20b Gargoyle b) battalions. Later Rosoboronexport denied this information.

"Regarding Russia, we supply S-300 systems, as well as any other type of weapons, in accordance with international law, our international obligations in this sphere, as well as domestic law on supervision over the export, which is one of the strictest among countries that sell weapons," Lavrov said.

It's necessary to consider the essence of the problem, but the fact is that we are talking about defensive weapons, which are supplied only in accordance with the requirements of international agreements.

"I wouldn't look for a destabilizing factor in this," Lavrov said. According to him, defensive armaments don't destabilize the situation with the exception of cases when someone tries to use an offensive weapon.


/Trend/