Israel concerned about safety of passenger planes if S-300s are shipped to Syria - diplomat
MOSCOW. June 11 (Interfax) - Russian-made S-300 air defense missile systems cannot be treated exclusively as defensive weapons if used in the Middle East area, and their supplies to Syria would pose a threat, inter alia, to Israeli commercial aircraft, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin said.
"Such defensive weapons become offensive and may turn all of Israel into a no-fly zone," Elkin said in an interview with Echo of Moscow radio on Tuesday. "When such a system is deployed in Damascus, it covers nearly the entire territory of Israel, that is, it can shoot down any passenger plane," he said.
It is especially dangerous when such a system falls into the hands of some terrorist organization, he said.
Elkin suggested that such decisions such as shipments of S-300s to Syria should not be based purely on legal considerations. As an example, he recalled that Russia earlier suspended arms shipments to Libya in a complicated situation. "Those weapons that were in Libya, including Igla anti-aircraft systems that can shoot down any passenger plane, are being looked for around the entire Middle East today," he said.
"Taking into account the instability in Syria, it is clear that such weapons which threaten passenger planes rather than only military ones are very dangerous, and it is difficult to explain the need to carry out this transaction precisely today by using purely formal arguments," he said.
"We are maintaining intensive dialogue at the level of our countries' leaders on this matter," Elkin said. He refrained from disclosing details of this dialogue.
"We have direct, very good and open contacts with the Russian leadership. Even when we disagree with each other, we always discuss everything openly. Each party understands the other's motives very well," he said.
