MOSCOW (Sputnik) – On Sunday, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported citing anonymous sources in Western intelligence services that Iran had secretly sent components of heavy offensive weapons to Russia for maintenance in a violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231. The newspaper claimed that Iranian planes landed at the Russian Hmeymim airbase in Syria in June, allegedly carrying military cargo. The cargo was then supposedly transported to the Syrian port city of Tartus and taken to the Russian city of Novorossiysk on a transport ship.
"The problems with the perception of what is happening in our relations with Iran are not from the Russian side, of course, because we are acting and will always act strictly in accordance with our international obligations. And these problems are of those anti-Russia media outlets who are simply looking for pretexts to further complicate the already extremely heavy gloomy background of the perception of what is happening in both Russia's dialogue with Western Europe and in relations between the West as a whole and Russia," the source said.
Moscow-Tehran relations are being turned into a bargaining chip, which is inappropriately used by the authors of such publications, the source pointed out.