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Missile facility in Iran (symbol picture): The new satellite is supposed to be brought into space from Russia
Photo: - / AFP
According to the information, the deal should go ahead in just a few months.
As the Washington Post reports, an arms deal is developing between Russia and Iran.
According to this, Tehran would get a modern Kanopus V satellite.
This is equipped with a high-resolution camera.
The newspaper relies on unnamed sources in the United States and the Middle East who are familiar with the flow of business.
According to these sources, the purchase would significantly increase the surveillance capabilities of the Iranian armed forces.
The satellite could soon be launched into space from Russian soil.
The Kanopus-V is officially referred to as a civil satellite.
According to the newspaper's sources, however, high-ranking representatives of the Iranian military and the powerful Revolutionary Guards were involved in the planning and have made several trips to Russia.
With the new satellite, Iran could track objects in Israel or the movements of US units in Iraq or the Persian Gulf from space.
Iran and Israel have been fighting each other in the region for years.
They wage their shadow war from the air and on the land.
According to the Washington Post, there has been no statement from Moscow so far.
However, both countries have emphasized in the past that they were planning joint space ventures.
Viennese talks in a crucial phase
The report is likely to have attracted attention in Vienna as well.
There emissaries of the Iranian president Hassan Rohani have been negotiating for weeks about a possible revival of the so-called nuclear agreement.
The decisive factor will be whether the US will largely lift its sanctions against Tehran and at the same time whether Iran will reduce its nuclear program to the permitted level.
The talks have entered a crucial phase.
Everyone involved - including the Europeans, China and Russia - hope for a breakthrough before the presidential elections on June 18.
With Rohani's likely successor, the conservative head of justice Ebrahim Raisi, an agreement is likely to be much more difficult to reach, perhaps even impossible.
jok
