Bahrain Mirror (Reuters): Russia and Qatar have been in discussions about a possible sale of S-400 missile systems to Doha, TASS news agency cited the Russian envoy to Qatar as saying on Saturday.

He also confirmed media reports that Qatar and Russia had signed a deal on supplying Qatar with small arms, such as Kalashnikov assault rifles, and anti-tank weapons.

"As far as the air defense is concerned, the S-400 systems and so on, there are talks about this, but there is no concrete conclusion," Nurmakhmad Kholov, the ambassador to Qatar, was quoted as saying.

Kholov also told TASS the Qatari Energy Minister Mohammed al-Sada will take part in Moscow's energy conference in October.

Russia has been pushing their exports of S-400 missiles and their predecessors, S-300s, throughout the Middle East. In 2017, NATO member, Turkey purchased the missiles. Saudi Arabia, another U.S. ally signed a memorandum in September 2017 agreeing to buy the systems from Russia. Russia is reported to have deployed a previous model of the missile, the S-300, to Syria, whilst using the S-400 to protect their own troops in Latakia, Syria.

Arabic Version