Iran refuses to confirm testing ballistic missile

TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign minister yesterday refused to confirm whether his country recently conducted a missile test, saying the Iranian missile program is not part of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The White House said on Monday that it is studying the details of an Iranian ballistic missile test. During a joint news conference with visiting French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault yesterday, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was asked if Iran had conducted a recent missile test.

“The missile issue is not part of the nuclear deal. As all signatories to the nuclear deal have announced, the missile issue is not a part of” the deal, he said. Iran’s missiles, he added are, “not designed for the capability of carrying a nuclear warhead ... Our ballistic missile was designed to carry a normal warhead in the field of legitimate defense.”

A US defense official said Monday that the missile test ended with a “failed” re-entry into earth’s atmosphere. The official had no other details, including the type of missile. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the US was looking into whether the ballistic missile test violates a 2015 United Nations Security Council resolution. Zarif yesterday said he hopes the issue is not used as, “an excuse for some political games by the new US administration.

The Iranian people would never allow their defense to be subject to the permission of others.”

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 are “contrary to the spirit” of the Security Council resolution on the nuclear deal struck in 2015 in the Austrian capital, and “hamper the process of restoring the confidence established by the Vienna agreement”.

Washington called for the emergency UN 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,” said Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon. “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 at the Security Council over the reported missile test. “Such actions, if they took place, do not breach the resolution,” Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax news agency. Ryabkov said that Moscow, which co-signed the nuclear deal, had not confirmed the missile test took place.

Zarif has said that its ballistic missile launches are not banned under UN Security Council Resolution 2231 because the prohibition only applies to missiles specifically designed to carry nuclear warheads. Iran has long argued that general missile tests are not banned, nor are those applying to ones capable of carrying nuclear warheads - so long as that was not their designated purpose. The US, which still maintains its own set of sanctions against Iran, has argued that previous ballistic missile launches are in defiance of the ban.

Meanwhile, the European Union called on Tehran to “refrain from activities which deepen mistrust”. EU foreign policy spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said that a ballistic missile test would not be a violation of the nuclear deal with world powers. However she said it was “inconsistent” with Resolution 2231. “Whether it constitutes a violation is for the Security Council to determine,” she said. —Agencies