Despite the ongoing P5+1 negotiations between the West and Iran, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed expectations of any compromise on his country’s ballistic missile program as “stupid” and “idiotic.”

UPI reports on the statements made to Iran’s IRNA news agency.

So this is a stupid, idiotic expectation … The revolutionary guards should definitely carry out their program and not be satisfied with the present level. They should mass produce. This is a main duty of all military officials.

Khamenei’s hardline stance against any rollback of Iran’s missile program is consistent with similar statements made about Iran’s nuclear program by President Hassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his deputy Abbas Araqchi, Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American Affairs Majid Takht Ravanchi, as well as other top regime officials. Last month in a meeting with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Khamenei said, “None of the nuclear achievements of the country can be given up. No one has the right to trade these achievements and no one will do this.”

Iran’s stated refusal to stop its ballistic missile program runs counter to long-running concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency and constitutes a flagrant violation of numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions. This was a concern raised by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Vann H. Van Diepen two months ago that Iran was “violating UN sanctions on procurement for both its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”

[Photo: Hashekemist / WikiCommons ]