Global Security Newswire

Russia's top diplomat on Friday denied that his government intends any additional sales of advanced S-300 air defenses to Syria, while not ruling out deliveries through a current agreement, Reuters reported.

Israel believes that the sale of S-300 batteries is looming, the Wall Street Journal reported this week. The technology could give the Assad government a valuable asset in countering missiles or aircraft operated by nations that might step into the 2-year-old Syrian civil war.

Damascus has been paying Russia for a seemingly suspended 2010 deal to purchase four S-300 batteries, according to the Journal.

"Russia is not planning to sell. Russia already sold them a long time ago," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. "It has signed the contracts and is completing deliveries, in line with the agreed contracts, of equipment which is anti-aircraft technology."

Lavrov did not address whether he was referring to S-300s or a different weapon.

"It is designed so that Syria, as the importer, should have the ability to protect itself from airstrikes, something that is not an entirely fantastical scenario," he told reporters.

The Obama administration, alerted by Israel, has called on Moscow to refrain from any such weapons deals, the Christian Science Monitor reported on Friday.

"We have consistently called on Russia not to provide a further supply of weapons to the Assad regime, including air defense systems that are particularly destabilizing to the region," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.