Will Iran buy Belarusian Iskanders?

Barys Batura, chairman of the “council of the republic” of the “national assembly” of Belarus, said the Belarusian authorities would ratify all agreements with Iran soon.

It should be noted that heads of all three branches of government of Iran have recently visited Belarus. Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi was the last to pay a visit to Belarus.

All visits take place ahead of the summit in Prague where inclusion of Belarus in the Eastern Partnership program will be decided.

Politologist Viktar Rouda thinks there’s a simple explanation to the situation.

“It’s an open secret that the Eastern partnership program was promised for the Belarusian authorities in exchange for non-recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” the politologist told in an interview to “Belorusski Partizan”. “Iran hasn’t delivered any secret ultimatums to us yet. So why don’t we use this situation? Yes, Alyaksandr Lukashenka takes a risk by closer relations with the Islamic republic, considered a rouge state by many European countries. But in this case, the game seems be worth the candle. In my view, only serious money can play a main role here. We can only guess in what sectors of the cooperation between the countries it may appear. In any case, I’d like to remind we had (and maybe have now) a nuclear reactor in Sosny and specialists who have been staying without work for a long time. Besides, as far as I know, our military cooperation with Teheran has expanded for the last years.”

According to “Belorusski Partizan”, elements of modern air defence systems as well as control systems, multiple rocket systems, small-arms, and so on were delivered to Iran. Belarusian military transport aircrafts were flying and, according to some information, are still flying to Iran.

Besides, Lukashenka told in his address to the nation: “We have never asked Iskanders from the Russians. We’ll buy them ourselves. But I’ll say sincerely, we’ll produce them ourselves if we would need them, except missiles; and we’ll buy missiles.”

Iskander-M missiles are efficient weapons. The missiles are able to carry a payload of 700 kg. Iskanders are also able to carry a nuclear payload. Iskander launch range is 500 km, so theoretically, the missiles can target objects in Israel from the territory of Iran.