Murr extracts promised gift of 10 fighter-bombers
Russia will deliver 10 MiG-29 fighter-bombers to the Lebanese Armed Forces, Defense Minister Elias Murr said on Tuesday after a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Anatoly Serdyukov, in Moscow.
According to Georges Soulage, a senior adviser to the defense minister, Murr announced after talks with Serdyukov that Russia would provide the 10 fighter planes to Lebanon and expressed the hope that the countries” bilateral military cooperation would continue to grow.
"This visit is the most important one that I have made since my appointment as defense minister," Murr said. "It carries more than one meaning on the technical, military and political levels."
"It is the start of a friendship as well as a professional military relationship between Lebanon and Russia," he added.
Murr noted that he was "surprised" by Russia”s offer to supply the potent aircraft, to be given as military aid, saying it "was much more than we had expected." He added that there would be additional coordination between Moscow and Beirut regarding the training of pilots, arming of the planes, and future military deals.
He also said that he had been presented with a joint military cooperation agreement by Serdyukov that he would give to the Cabinet upon his return to Beirut.
Concerning the promises of other countries that have pledged military aid to Lebanon but failed to deliver, Murr said: "Some of these promises turned out to be good, but others were only promises."
A defense official at the Russian Embassy in Beirut said he had no official information on the news report.
The MiG-29s would be a significant boost to Lebanon”s meager air force, which currently consists of five Hawker Hunter jets from the 1950s and 1960s and just over a dozen helicopters. First introduced in the early 1980s, the MiG-29 is a single-seat, air-superiority fighter with various ground-attack capabilities. It was designed to challenge the US” early F-15 and F-16 models, and has been in wide use in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
According the Russia”s state-owned ITAR-Tass news agency, Serdyukov said after his meeting with Murr: "I am pleased that our first meeting passed in a positive, friendly atmosphere. We”ve received a list of the Lebanese Armed Forces” [LAF] needs and are ready to consider it in the nearest future."
Quoting defense officials, Russia”s Ria Novosti news agency said that the LAF was seeking other heavy weaponry, like tanks, antitank rockets, air-defense systems and helicopters.
Before his visit to Moscow, Murr met with Russian military and military-technical cooperation director Mikhail Dimitriev in Beirut on December 6. Both parties voiced a willingness to expand defense cooperation.
After the meeting, Dimitriev said that Russia considered "it very important to see a strong LAF," adding that Moscow wished to "provide a new pulse to or bilateral relations in the military and technical field."
For his part, Murr said that there were no obstacles to Russia equipping the LAF; and a senior Lebanese defense official told The Daily Star that "no political conditions" would be attached to future arms deals.
The possibility of direct Russian military aid Lebanon was raised in November during Future Movement chief and parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri”s trip to Moscow.
Hariri reportedly told the Russian Interfax news agency that Washington”s military support was limited to light weaponry, and that Lebanon was in need of more powerful equipment, "like tanks and artillery."
In addition, Hariri was quoted as saying that Moscow was willing to deliver heavy weaponry to Lebanon at reduced prices, and that specific deals would be arranged when Murr visited Russia later in the year.
However, Murr said that the warplanes would be given to the LAF in the form of military aid, making Russia the second country after the United States to deliver direct military aid to the LAF in recent years.
Indeed, Russia”s plan to deliver the warplanes adds to the speculation over the large-scale rearming of the LAF, which according to some analysts is the largest since the 1980s.
The US has given around $410 million in military aid in the form of equipment and training, and the delivery of US M60 battle tanks is slated to begin in this spring. In addition, other countries have recently voiced their willingness to participate in the rearming process, or have been petitioned by Beirut to do so.
During a state visit by President Sleiman to Iran in late January, there were reports that Tehran had offered to supply the Lebanese military with mid-range rockets as part of a five-year defense deal.
And during a state visit to Germany in early December, sources in the German government told The Daily Star that Sleiman had requested tanks from German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung.
Prior to his meeting with Serdyukov Tuesday, Murr was presented with a Russian Defense Ministry medal "For the Strengthening of Comradeship-in-Arms." According to ITAR-Tass, during the decoration ceremony Murr was applauded for "strengthening [the] bilateral military and military technical cooperation and for assisting the Russian military contingent in rebuilding the Lebanese infrastructure."
In response, Murr thanked the Russian president, premier and defense minister for their "support and affection."
Separately Tuesday, Russian military chief General Nikolai Makarov told Interfax that Russia is mulling a deal to buy Israeli surveillance drones, following strategic intelligence-gathering deficiencies during the short Russian-Georgian conflict this August.