TEHRAN, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) – The Iranian president on Thursday ordered to proceed the country’s missile program “with high speed and seriously” and expand Iran’s missile capabilities, in response to the USA considered sanctions, official IRNA news agency reported.
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Whether the missile dispute will have an adverse effect on the nuclear deal remains unclear.
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Iranian officials have insisted that their ballistic missile program does not violate United Nations sanctions and the country’s supreme leader would view any new sanctions as violating the nuclear accord.
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A senior administration official said in a statement to AFP that “we’ve been looking for some time at options for additional actions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program”.
The Wall Street Journal said the USA sanctions would target about 12 people and companies connected to the missile program.
“We tell the Americans we are so powerful, strong, fearless and realistic that if we launched a missile, we would publicly announce it”, he said.
While the rockets weren’t fired in the direction of any ships, Raines said Iran’s actions were “highly provocative”.
The purported incident comes five months after Iran and world powers led by the USA agreed a landmark deal – yet to be finally implemented – to limit the Islamic republic s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.
Iran says the resolution would ban only missiles “designed” to carry a nuclear warhead, not “capable of” carrying one, so it would not affect its military programme as Tehran does not pursues nuclear weapons.
The Treasury Department will direct the sanctions at a dozen different companies and individuals from Iran, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates for their alleged role in developing Iran’s ballistic-missile program. “Iran’s missile program has no connection to the [nuclear] agreement”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said on Thursday.
Elsewhere in the letter, President Rouhani warned that if the USA repeats such “wrong and interventionist” moves, the Iranian Defense Ministry must develop a “new plan” for expanding the country’s missile capabilities.
Republican lawmakers who control both houses of the US Congress see the plans for new sanctions as a test of the Obama administration’s resolve. Iran has called Emad a conventional missile.
As Iran News Update pointed out on Thursday, Rouhani’s threat of an expanded missile stockpile gives additional ammunition to the National Council of Resistance of Iran and other groups that insist Rouhani is a regime insider and an implausible source of moderation or reform.
Iranian and USA forces have clashed in the Gulf in the past, especially during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
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The deal was a risky diplomatic achievement for both Obama and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, leaders of countries that have been enemies for almost 40 years.
