U.S. Vows More Sanctions As Iran And Russia Reportedly Advance Drone Cooperation

Russia and Iran are believed to be moving ahead with plans to build a facility in Russian territory that can make at least 6,000 Iranian-designed drones, the U.S. media reported on Monday.

The State Department spokesperson Ned Price wouldn’t confirm the reports but when asked by TURAN's Washington correspondent on Monday, he did say "it, in a way, at a broader level, doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know."

"We have spoken extensively over the past six months or so now about the burgeoning security relationship between Russia and Iran, between – about the provision of UAV technology from Iran to Russia, but also the fact that this is very much a two-way street," Price said, explaining that Russia is in turn providing Iran with military and security wares that it has requested as well.

"It’s part of the reason why we’ve enacted a number of tranches of sanctions against not only Russian actors, but in this case Iranian actors as well," he added.

As TURAN reporters last week, the U.S. on Friday designated 8 Iranian individuals who were purporting or acting on behalf of an entity known as Paravar Pars. It’s an Iranian firm that produces UAVs for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force. Washington designated this entity in September, and then on Friday it took action against these eight individuals affiliated with it."

Price wend on to add, "We don’t preview, of course, future sanctions actions, but we will continue to look for targets that will allow us to counter this relationship between Iran and Russia, and more concretely, the provision of UAV technology from Iran to Russia that has resulted in untold damage, destruction across Ukraine and to the people of Ukraine."

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.