Iranians attend a state-organized annual rally in front of the former US Embassy in Tehran, Nov. 3, 2016. (AP/Vahid Salemi)
As Iranian officials dismissed the Trump administration’s warning “putting Iran on notice,” Trump and Republican members of Congress committed to further rein in Iran.
Iranian officials dismissed the Trump administration’s warning on Wednesday that “put Iran on notice” for destabilizing the Middle East and for failing to abide by its obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which officially endorsed the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5 +1 powers (US, UK, Germany, France, Russia and China).
“Claims made by US President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser are baseless, repetitive and provocative,” the spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Bahram Ghasemi, said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
Trump’s national security advisor Michael Flynn accused Iran of violating its obligations under Resolution 2231 to avoid any activity associated with nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in light of a ballistic missile test over the weekend. He also blamed the Islamic Republic for “weapons transfers, support for terrorism, and other violations of international norms.”
Deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Brigadier General Hossein Salami, expressed a more defiant tone than Ghasemi.
“The number of Iranian missiles, warships and defense missile launchers is growing every day, and the sky, land and sea is under the control of this nation,” said General Salami. “This is not a land where an outsider can set foot with sinister intentions.”
Meanwhile, Republican members of the US Congress have backed Trump’s efforts to rein in Iran and presented, on Thursday, the Iran Non-Nuclear Sanctions Act of 2017. The bill would impose sanctions on Iran for its continued support of terrorism and testing of ballistic missiles.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan expressed his support on Thursday for placing new sanctions on Iran.
“We need to have a tough-on-Iran policy,” Ryan said. “Iran, don’t forget, is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.”
“Iran writes on their missiles in Farsi, Hebrew and English ‘Death to America’, ‘Death to Israel,’ and then tests them,” he continued. “So this is not a friendly country that has global peace or national security interests in their minds.”
For his part, Trump said on Thursday that “nothing is off the table” when asked by reporters if he would consider taking military action against Iran.
By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News
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