Russia says weapons for Syria to continue

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MOSCOW, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Anatoly Isaikin, head of Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport, acknowledged the company sells weapons to Syria and more are in the pipeline.

"We are continuing to carry out our obligations under contracts for supplies of military hardware. But this hardware is not offensive," Isaikin told a Moscow news conference.

He said the weapons include advanced air-defense systems but not the advanced Iskander missiles Damascus seeks, Interfax reported Wednesday.

Syria, he said, ranks "13th or 14th in terms of volume" on the list of countries to which Moscow supplies weapons.

He rejected reports Russia planned to supply Syria with advanced MiG29-M fighter jets but admitted there was a deal for Yak-130 training jets, Defencetalk.com said.

Isaikin said Russia sold as many weapons abroad in 2012 as the previous year and has a portfolio of $37 billion in foreign orders, themoscowtimes.com said. He said Moscow was supplying weapons to Mali and had signed a weapons deal worth $4.2 billion with Iraq.