A day earlier, state media announced that short-, medium- and long-range precision guided missiles were fired from several sites to show the country’s “all-out readiness to confront threats ” .
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After the first round of tests on Tuesday, U.S. officials suggested the action may have violated a United Nations resolution and said they would raise the issue at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
“President Obama must lead and aggressively enforce all sanctions against Iran’s missile programs, support for terrorism, and human rights abuses”.
Ballistic missile tests have been seen as a way for Iran’s military to demonstrate that the nuclear deal will have no impact on its plans, which it says are for domestic defence only. In January, as existing sanctions eased under the nuclear deal, the US announced a new set of sanctions that focused on 11 people and entities connected to Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Ban Ki Moon made the call in reaction to ballistic missile tests carried out this week by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on March 10. “If in fact they break the deal, we will act.” .
Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said the missiles were conventional armaments for “legitimate defense” and not designed for carrying nuclear warheads, the state-controlled IRNA news agency reported.
The United States is also attempting to act “wherever [it] can find” military activity not covered by the deal, Joe Biden said during a visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Most folks with any common sense – and that would eliminate much of official Washington, especially the State Department – have known all along the Iran nuclear deal wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. “Iran will not turn into Yemen, Iraq or Syria”, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh told state TV on late Wednesday, referring to a series of Middle East countries consumed with internal conflicts or outright civil war.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his US counterpart John Kerry have not discussed Iran’s missile tests, a source told Iran’s Students News Agency ISNA on Thursday. Iran has threatened to destroy Israel in the past.
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Iran denies that this test was “provocative”, according to the wire service.
