Iran’s top diplomat acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that Tehran had supplied drones to Moscow, insisting the transfer came before Russia’s war with Ukraine, in which Iranian-made drones bombed kyiv.
The comments by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian come after months of conflicting messages from Iran about weapons shipments as Russia sends the drones at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and civilian targets.
“We gave a limited number of drones to Russia months before the Ukraine war,” Amirabdollahian told reporters in Tehran.
Iranian officials have previously denied arming Russia for the war against Ukraine.
Earlier this week, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Amir Saeid Iravani, said the claims were “completely baseless” and reiterated Iran’s stance of neutrality in the war.
The United States and its Western allies in the Security Council have asked Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to investigate whether Russia used Iranian drones to attack civilians in Ukraine.
Still, the paramilitary Iranian Revolutionary Guard vaguely boasted of supplying drones to major world powers. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the effectiveness of drones and scoffed at the West, who spoke of their dangerousness.
During state-backed demonstrations to mark the 1979 inauguration of the US embassy on Friday, crowds waved triangle-shaped drone banners as a show of national pride.
Acknowledging the shipment, Amirabdollahian said today that Iran was ignorant of the use of its drones in Ukraine and said that Iran remained committed to fighting the conflict.
“Yes [a Ucrânia] have any document in their possession indicating that Russia used Iranian drones in Ukraine, they should provide us,” he said.
“If you prove to us that Russia used Iranian drones in the war against Ukraine, we will not be indifferent to this issue,” he said.
Source: TSF
