Ayatollah Khamenei praised the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for their “show of advanced and precise missiles” in a statement published on his website on Wednesday.
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Khamenei said: “Those who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are either ignorant or traitors”.
“If the Islamic System seeks technology and negotiations, but lacks defensive power, it will be forced to backdown faced even with a tiny country’s threats”, said Khamenei. But it maintained a ban on Iran’s launch of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
The United States, France, Britain and Germany – the major backers of the nuclear deal that led to the lifting of sanctions against Iran, have called for a UN Security Council meeting to respond to Tehran’s recent ballistic missile tests, which they say defy a UN resolution.
On March 8, Iran fired another ballistic missile called Qiam from silo-based launchers in different locations across the country. Because Moscow has a veto power being a permanent member of the United Nations, any action on the matter seems unlikely.
“You may like it or not that Iran launches ballistic missiles – but that is a different story”.
The report from the four Western nations was sent to Spain’s U.N. ambassador who has been designated by the Security Council to receive communications about Iran’s compliance with the resolution. It was the first such test since Iran and world powers reached the landmark deal last summer. “The truth is that in the 2231 resolution there are no such bans”, Interfax news agency cited Mikhail Ulyanov, head of Russian’s department for non-proliferation and arms control, as saying.
Several diplomats said, according to Reuters, that the most Iran could face was a public rebuke from the U.N. Security Council but that rebuke could become a legal springboard for European countries to consider new sanctions against the country.
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Last Thursday the USA placed sanctions on two Iranian companies, Shahid Nuri Industries and Shahid Movahead Industries, after it claimed they were working for Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group.
