later in august 2016, iran′s minister of defense hossein dehghan clarified that iran was hosting russia′s aircraft at the request of the syrian government and russia was free to utilise it as long as it was necessary. the following day, on 21 august, he appeared to criticise russia′s actions as rash and self-aggrandizing and was quoted as saying, “under no circumstances will we ever provide russians with a military base. they have not come here to stay.” on 22 august 2016, iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said russia would stop using the air base for syria airstrikes "for the time being".