ROME. Feb 4 (Interfax-AVN) - Moscow does not plan to cut back its military-technical cooperation with Tehran, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said at a Monday press conference in Rome.
"Russia supplies conventional armaments and materiel to Iran. These are armored personnel carriers and anti-aircraft systems of limited range. It is the matter of regular commerce and we will not stop it," Ivanov remarked.
There are limits on the part of the international community in military-technical cooperation with Iran, Ivanov stressed. "If Russia stops selling armaments to Iran, its place on the market will be taken by dozens of other states," he said.
"Iran is our neighbor, and we have normal relations with this nation," the minister noted. "Our turnover is growing, and military-technical cooperation does not play the mail part. Military-technical cooperation with Iran is incomparable with the volume of arms that Russia sells to many other states," he said.
Ivanov discarded concerns of several western nations regarding the construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran by Russian specialists. "The construction of the nuclear power plant in Busher meets all commitments that Russia has undertaken to the global community. I think I should mention that the United States is building a similar nuclear power plant in North Korea," he said.