Russia’s Kremlin stressed the positive nature of cooperation between Moscow and Riyadh concerning the implementation of military-technical agreements announced by the two sides at a press conference following talks between King Salman bin Abdulaziz during his historic visit to Moscow last week with President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin had announced early Monday that it is in the middle of serious talks with Saudi Arabia over Russia supplying Saudi Arabia with advanced S-400 air defense missile systems.
Russia and Saudi Arabia have agreed on supplies of S-400 missile systems, the press service of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation told the largest Russian news agency, and the fourth largest worldwide, TASS reported.
"We confirm that an agreement was reached with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the supplies of S-400 air defense systems, Kornet-EM anti-tank guided missiles, TOS-1A systems, AGS-30 automatic grenade launchers and AK-103 Kalashnikov rifles," the press service said.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin earlier said commenting on the visit of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz to Russia that Riyadh was interested in buying Russia’s S-400 systems.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, on a conference call with reporters, was responding to a question about whether a decision by the US State Department to approve the possible sale of a THAAD anti-missile defense system to Saudi Arabia might affect the Russian deal.
Peskov said the Kremlin could only offer its own assessment of how talks were progressing but said preliminary negotiations on the deal had gone well.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Saudi Arabia’s King Salman for talks at the Kremlin last week, cementing a relationship that is pivotal for world oil prices and could decide the outcome of the conflict in Syria.
Peskov said Russia’s decision to offer the missiles to Riyadh was not aimed at any third party.
