Navy Commander: Russian fleet of warships to berth in Iran soon

A detachment of Russia's fleet of warships is due to dock in Iran's territorial waters in the near future, Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari announced on Tuesday. "The Russian flotilla of warships will visit Iran in the near future," Sayyari told FNA in the Northern city of Rasht. He referred to reciprocal visits paid by Iranian and Russian fleets of warships, and said, "Last year, the Russian flotillas of warships berthed in Bandar Abbas (a port city in Southern Iran) twice and the Islamic Republic of Iran hosted them." "This year, the Iranian Navy's fleet of warships in the Caspian Sea visited Russia as well," he said, and added that the same trend will continue. Two Iranian Navy warships visited Astrakhan late in June and returned home early July. The Joshan (Shield) and Peykan (Arrow) vessels started their mission on June 25 navigating along the Caspian Sea and the Volga-Don Canal in Russia. "Two missile-launching warships which have been manufactured by the young Iranian experts and joined the Navy's fleet in 2003 and 2006 were for the first time dispatched to the Russian port of Astrakhan in the form of a flotilla," Deputy Commander of the Iranian Navy Admiral Siyavash Jarreh said after the flotilla left Iran's Caspian waters for Russia in late June. He further mentioned "consolidation of the friendly relations between Iran and Russia" as the goal of the mission, adding that the Navy also aims to display the might and increased knowledge and experience of its young personnel. The voyage by the Iranian warships spotlighted expansion of naval cooperation between Tehran and Moscow as almost a month earlier in mid April, a detachment of the Russian Pacific Fleet warships docked in Iran's Southern port city of Bandar Abbas. The Russian fleet, comprised of Admiral Panteleyev anti-submarine destroyer and two logistic warships of Peresvet and Admiral Novelskoy with a total number of 712 crews, entered the Army's first naval zone in Bandar Abbas on April 21. The Iranian army said that the visit was aimed at the consolidation of the relations between Iran and Russia and expansion of military interactions between the two countries in the field of naval security. The Voice of Russia had earlier reported that the Russian warships have left Vladivostok to do combat duty in the world oceans, and that they would have a short stop in Bandar Abbas en route to their mission zone. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced then that it had begun forming a separate Mediterranean squadron.