MOSCOW, May 27 (RIA Novosti) – A contract for the supply of Russian MiG fighters to Syria serves to strike a balance of arms and maintain peace in the region, a top leader of Syria’s Popular Front for Change and Liberation told RIA Novosti.
"The Soviet Union has always supplied weapons to Syria. Thus, some balance in the region was maintained to help us keep the peace, so I think that the contract is part of this historical strategy," one of the Popular Front’s leaders Qadri Jamil explained.
If someone tries to disrupt the contract under the pretext of the ongoing conflict in the country, "it will be unclear, illogical and unpersuasive because the transaction is not related to the internal events," according to Jamil.
Last weekend, MiG CEO Sergei Korotkov said the company was planning to supply 12 MiG-29M/M2 fighters to Syria in 2016-2017 under a contract concluded in 2007, but due to the ongoing war in the country there may be problems with the deliveries.
The civil war in Syria broke out in 2011, following the unrest that swept the Arab world three years ago, known as the Arab Spring. The war has since claimed up to 130,000 lives.
