American Sanctions Off Sukhoi
// World trade
The U.S. State Department removed its sanctions against Sukhoi holding company, but left them in place in against Rosoboroneksport. Although the sanctions are formally related to cooperation with Iran, Kommersant has learned that the sanctions were removed after Russia was able to explain that Sukhoi supplies of aviation equipment to Venezuela do not threaten U.S. security.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced the end of the sanctions yesterday in Hanoi. The sanctions were imposed at the end of July on Sukhoi and Rosoboroneksport for two years. The formal cause for the sanctions was violations by those companies of U.S. legislation that bans cooperation with Iran in the area of weapons of mass destruction. The sanctions prevented U.S. government organizations from buying goods or services from or selling them to the Russian companies and prevented U.S. private companies from supplying them with products for military use.
The formal cause for the sanctions was unspecified cooperation between Rosoboroneksport and Sukhoi in the creating means for the transport of weapons of mass destruction. A Kommersant source in the Russian government said, however, that the real claims by the U.S. against the Russian companies involved Russian technical military cooperation with Venezuela. Rosoboroneksport sign a contract with the Venezuelan Defense Ministry in June for the delivery of 24 Su-30MK2 fighters jets for more than $1 billion. “American law has not yet placed any limitations on deliveries of weapons to Caracas,” the source observed. “Therefore, the law limiting cooperation with Iran was used.” The source added that Moscow has recently succeeded in demonstrating that its technical military cooperation with Caracas does not threaten U.S. security.
“We are glad that the State Department investigated the situation and acknowledged that our contacts with Iran cannot be seen as a violation of international norms,” Vadim Razumovsky, Sukhoi deputy general director, told Kommersant yesterday, “although neither Sukhoi itself not its subsidiary Sukhoi Civilian Aircraft suffered any losses from the sanctions. The sanctions were not reflected in the deadline for completion of the Sukhoi SuperJet100 project.” That project has numerous American suppliers, but Sukhoi Civilian Aircraft no problems with them, except for the American branch of the British BAE Systems, which is making the SaM146 computer for the engine of the Sukhoi SuperJet100, and the American Honeywell Co., which is supplying gyroscopes.
The U.S. State Department acknowledged to Lavrov that the sanctions against Rosoboroneksport would remain in place. “We hope that the sanctions will be removed from it,” Lavrov said of Rosboroneksport. Dmitry Shugaev, head of the staff of the general director of Rosoboroneksport, told Kommersant that “the halfway measure disappoints us. We were counting on the U.S. State Department to have the good sense to remove the sanctions completely.”
Konstantin Lantratov, Alexandra Gritskova
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 20, 2006
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