Iran hits back at US over missiles move
IRAN warned the United States yesterday against creating new tensions over its ballistic missile tests as Washington called for urgent talks at the UN Security Council on the issue.
The row comes against a backdrop of strained relations over US President Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens from Iran and six other Muslim-majority countries.
The European Union appealed to Tehran to refrain from activities like the missile tests “which deepen mistrust”.
But the diplomatic push by the West quickly ran into trouble as Russia said a missile test would not breach a UN resolution on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Moscow, which is fighting alongside Iran’s forces in Syria, said the call for talks at the Security Council was aimed at heating up the situation.
Tehran has neither confirmed nor denied firing any missiles over the weekend.
Trump has sharply criticised the nuclear deal that led to a lifting of international sanctions against Iran, which used the occasion of a visit by France’s foreign minister to express its discontent with Washington.
“We hope that Iran’s defence programme is not used by the new US administration as a pretext to create new tensions,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said at a media conference with Jean-Marc Ayrault.
Iran says its missiles do not breach United Nations resolutions because they do not carry nuclear warheads.
“We have always declared that we will never use our weapons against others except in our defence,” Zarif said.
And he slammed the new US administration’s “shameful act of denying entry to people holding legal visas” for the United States.
Speaking at the same news conference, Ayrault said France had made clear its disquiet over the missile tests.
“France has expressed its concern at Iran’s continuation of its ballistic missile tests on several occasions,” he said.
He said the continued tests were contrary to the spirit of the Security Council resolution on the nuclear deal struck in 2015 in the Austrian capital, and hampered the process of restoring the confidence established by the Vienna agreement.
Washington called for the emergency UN Security Council meeting after a request by Israel, which said the missile test violated UN resolutions that bar Iran from launching ballistic missiles that could have a nuclear capability.
“The international community must not bury its head in the sand in the face of this Iranian aggression,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said
“The Security Council members must act immediately in response to these Iranian actions which endanger not only Israel, but the entire Middle East.”
But Russia indicated it had little appetite for any move to censure Iran. – AFP