Azerbaijan, Russia to sign new agreement on Gabala radar station

Azerbaijan and Russia are expected to sign new agreement on prolongation of lease contract on Gabala radar station, defense sources said.

The sides reached a consensus on some items proposed by Azerbaijan during the talks started in May, 2011. Now they are conducting some technical work on a new lease agreement including amendments and changes. No details about the proposals were reported.

To prolong the lease term, Azerbaijan made some proposals, including increasing of leasing fee, Russia’s additional measures for the prevention of radar station’s effect on the environment, extending Azerbaijani staff of the station, joint use of the station and not transferring the station data to third country without coordinating it with Baku.

The Gabala radar (radiolocation station) is a Daryal-type bistatic phased-array early warning radar, built in the Gabala district of Azerbaijan in 1985 as one of the eight main stations of the USSR Missile Defense Complex. It is now operated by the Russian Space Forces. The radar station has a range of up to 6,000 kilometres (3,728 mi), and was designed to detect missile launches as far as from the Indian Ocean. The radar’s surveillance covers Iran, Turkey, India, Iraq and the entire Middle East. It allows not only detection of the launch of a missile but also to track the whole of its trajectory so as to enable a ballistic missile defense system to intercept an offensive strike. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan negotiated the terms of the lease of the station, which is the property of Azerbaijan, and in 2002 the two countries signed an agreement according to which Russia leased the station from Azerbaijan until 2012 for $7 million per year.


/APA/