Putin signs bill on deployment of Russian military air force in Syria
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a federal law ratifying a protocol to an agreement on the deployment of an air group of the Russian Armed Forces to Syrian territory.
The document was published on Wednesday, on the official portal for legal information.
"To ratify the protocol to the agreement between the Russian Federation and the Syrian Arab Republic on the deployment of an aviation group of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, of August 26, 2015, signed in Damascus on January 18, 2017," the document says.
The protocol establishes in particular that for the sake of the air group deployment, Syria will transfer the land plot of the Khmeimim airfield, as well as the real estate located on it, to Russia for gratuitous use for the entire term of the agreement and protocol.
The document is aimed at establishing an international legal framework governing the conditions for the presence of the Russian air group in Syria, as well as strengthening the defense capability of the Russian Federation and Syria, proceeding from the mutual desire of the parties to strengthen and develop military cooperation.
The provisions of the protocol also regulate the implementation by the Russian side of its jurisdiction in places of deployment of the air group, as well as its military and civilian personnel and their family members. Immunities and privileges have been established, and a procedure for cooperation on matters of jurisdiction and provision of legal assistance in civil, criminal and administrative cases has been determined.
The protocol states that the agreement is valid for 49 years, and is automatically extended for the next 25-year periods.