Iran has started production on the locally-designed Kowsar fighter plane for use in its air force, Iranian state television reported over the weekend, days before a second round of renewed U.S. sanctions on Tehran is to take effect.
"Soon the required number of planes will be manufactured and put at the service of the Air Force," Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said at a ceremony on Saturday, marking the launch the plane's production.
Iran says the Kowsar is "100% locally made" and is able to carry various weapons. It will reportedly be used for short aerial support missions.
However, some military experts believe the Iranian fighter jet is a carbon copy of the F-5, an aircraft first produced in the United States in the 1960s.
Iran's air force has been limited to perhaps a few dozen strike aircraft using either Russian or aging U.S. models acquired before the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Tehran has sent weapons and thousands of soldiers to Syria to help prop up President Bashar Assad's forces but had to rely on Russia for aerial support due to its own lack of a powerful air force.
The Islamic republic launched in 2013 what it said was a new, domestically built fighter jet, called Qaher 313, but some experts expressed doubts about the viability of the aircraft at the time.
