Iran’s supreme leader yesterday criticized new US sanctions on Tehran signed by US President Donald Trump the previous day, and vowed his nation would continue its missile program, despite international pressure.
Washington will “use any excuse to make a fuss” against Iran, Iranian Supremem Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said at a ceremony marking the formal endorsement of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for his second term in office.
“You launch a satellite-carrying missile, they make noise,” he said, describing the Iranian launch as a “scientific and technical job that is routine and necessary.”
Photo: AP
“The response to the hostility is to become stronger,” Khamenei said, describing the US government as “the top aggressor and the most shameless “enemy of Iran.
“Some have sharply applied hostility [against Iran], like those who today are in office in the US,” Khamenei said, without mentioning Trump or the US president’s signing of the legislation on Wednesday.
The law also imposed new sanctions on Russia and North Korea.
According to a letter sent to the UN Security Council and obtained by reporters on Wednesday, the US and three Western allies called Iran’s recent launch of a satellite-carrying rocket “a threatening and provocative step” that is “inconsistent” with a UN resolution endorsing the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Iran last week launched its most advanced satellite-carrying rocket into space, marking the most significant step forward for the Islamic republic’s young space program.
In the letter to the council, the US, France, Germany and the UK said that the Simorgh space launch vehicle, if configured as a ballistic missile, would have the range and “payload capacity to carry a nuclear warhead.”
Iran says the 2015 nuclear deal that put caps on its uranium enrichment program — a pathway to nuclear weapons — and the resolution endorsing that deal do not ban the country from ballistic missile activity.
On Tuesday, Iranian Parliament speaker Ali Larijani said that Tehran has officially complained to the council over the latest US sanctions.
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