Iran has vowed to continue its illicit missile development program despite violating UN resolutions and growing US opposition.
By: AP and World Israel News Staff
US Secretary of State Kerry. (AP/Saul Loeb)
Iran has dismissed US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent talk of a “new arrangement” involving Tehran’s ballistic missiles, calling the idea “nonsense.”
Kerry said during a visit to the Gulf earlier this week that the US and its allies were “prepared to work on a new arrangement to find a peaceful solution” to the dispute over recent Iranian missile tests.
Last October and November Iran successfully test-fired its precision-guided long-range Emad missile.
A Security Council resolution adopted after the Iran nuclear deal was signed last year calls for Iran not to launch any ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear weapon.
On Saturday, Iranian state TV quoted Defense Minister Gen. Hossein Dehghan as saying Kerry should instead focus on problems raised by the presence of US forces in the region and past military interventions.
“The Americans have always shown such behaviors and the US secretary of state’s remarks can be studied from several aspects and show that the US is feeling passive and helpless with regard to Iran’s defense capabilities and that the US-affiliates are feeling concern as they are watching the Americans’ inability to support them,” Dehqan told reporters in Tehran on Saturday.
“If the Americans are really after stability in the region, they had better leave it and return to their country and stop supporting the terrorists,” he added.
Kerry played a key role in the negotiations between Iran and world powers that led to last year’s controversial nuclear agreement.
In response to Kerry’s comments, Deputy Chief of Staff of Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazzayeri warned the US officials that Iran’s missile power is a redline which can no way be encroached.
“Iran’s diplomatic apparatus which hammered out a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on its nuclear program to deal firmly and transparently with the US meddling in Iran’s affairs, especially in the domain of defense,” General Jazzayeri told reporters on Friday.
“We are stressing what has been said several times that is the missile power is non-negotiable and among the redlines of the Iranian nation and is meant for developing its defense capabilities, Iran doesn’t get permission from anybody,” he added.