An Iranian general called a recent ballistic missile test launch that defied a United Nations Security Council Resolution “significant,” Iran’s PressTV news reported Tuesday.
Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)’s Aerospace Division, boasted, “We will continue to conduct our missile tests and this latest one was particularly significant,” about the test launch of a ballistic missile on December 1.
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the launch at the time as that of “a medium range ballistic missile that is capable of carrying multiple warheads.” The missile, Pompeo charged, “has a range that allows it to strike parts of Europe and anywhere in the Middle East.”
The launch defied UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which “calls upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.” Resolution 2231 is the resolution that implemented the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
At a Security Council meeting convened by the U.S. on December 4, the French Ambassador to the UN Francois Delattre said that his government considered the launch to be “inconsistent” with the terms of the resolution. He added that France called on Iran to stop all activity related to ballistic missiles “designed to be able to carry nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology.”
Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Karen Pierce told reporters after the meeting that the resolution applied to ballistic missiles, whether or not they were carrying nuclear weapons. She also described Iran’s missiles tests as being “inconsistent” with the resolution and as being “part and parcel of Iran’s destabilizing activity in the region.”
Iran’s Mission to the UN insisted that the ballistic missiles are strictly defensive weapons and only designed to carry conventional warheads. The mission added, “Iran has never sought to acquire nuclear weapons and never will in the future.”
However, nuclear archives recovered by Israel earlier this year from a facility in Tehran show that Iran’s nuclear weapons research had “advanced further than previously realized,” according to Israeli officials.
[Photo: PressTV ]