Revolutionary
Guards head hits back at US threat of sanctions over weapons tests,
says regime has so many missiles it doesn’t know where to put them
IRGC
Deputy Commander Hossein Salami said during a February 9, 2015
interview that after years of research, Iran tested the use of a
ballistic missile against a ship when he was IRGC air force commander.
(Photo credit: YouTube screenshot)
Iran will keep producing
missiles for as long as the United States supports Israel, the head of
the Revolutionary Guards Corps vowed Friday, as a war of words between
Washington and Tehran continued in the aftermath of Iranian rocket tests
last week.
The
US had warned that the tests violated the terms of previously signed
agreements as well as those of a July 2015 nuclear deal struck between
Iran and world powers, and could result in fresh sanctions on the
Islamic Republic. Washington has since said that plans for new sanctions
were on hold.
“Today the Americans speak about Iran’s
missile development program and they want to impose new sanctions on
Iran,” the semi-official Fars news agency quoted General Hossein Salami
as saying in a speech during Friday prayers in Tehran.
“We tell the Americans that we will further
expedite enhancement of our missile capabilities as long as they
massacre the Palestinian children, as long as they bury Yemen’s
oppressed children in their houses, as long as they displace the Muslim
nation of Syria, as long as they attack the houses of the Pakistanis, as
long as they occupy the Islamic lands and as long as they support the
Zionist regime to bomb Lebanon, Palestine and Syria.”
Iranians
hold mock missiles bearing anti-Israel slogans during a rally in
Tehran’s Azadi Square (Freedom Square) to mark the 36th anniversary of
the Islamic revolution on February 11, 2015. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO /
ATTA KENARE)
Salami also said that Iran had so many missiles that it had nowhere to store them, AFP reported.
“We lack enough space in our stockpiles to
house our missiles,” he said. “Hundreds of long tunnels are full of
missiles ready to fly to protect your integrity, independence and
freedom,” he told worshipers in Tehran, promising to never “stop
developing our defense deterrent.”
Iranian state television aired in October unprecedented footage of such an underground missile base.
Tehran on Thursday accused the United States of lying about it test-firing missiles
near a US warship, as anger rose at the specter of new sanctions. The
US has said that it has shelved plans for fresh sanctions.
The Revolutionary Guards denied that its naval
forces had been involved in the December 26 incident, in which the US
said missiles came close to the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in
the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
has ordered his defense minister to speed up the production of missiles,
following the US warning of new sanctions — the first since the
landmark nuclear deal was signed in July.
Rouhani said Iran would not accept any curbs on its missile program.
A US military official said an Iranian vessel
had test-fired several ballistic missiles near three Western warships,
including the aircraft carrier. A French frigate and the USS Bulkeley
destroyer were also in the area.
Though the missiles were not fired toward any
warship, their proximity to them and several commercial ships —
reportedly around 1,500 yards (meters) — was “highly provocative,” said
the US official, who was not authorized to be named.
Revolutionary Guards spokesman General Ramezan
Sharif, quoted on the Guards’ website, accused the US of fabricating
the incident — which reportedly occurred after Iranian naval forces
announced via radio that the test-firing was to begin.
“Publishing such lies in the current situation is more a psychological operation,” Sharif said.
“The security and peace of the Gulf is of
serious strategic importance to Iran. The Guards conduct exercises to
increase our required preparedness at due times, based on our own
schedule.”
Ballistic missile tests by Iran are prohibited
under Security Council resolution 1929, which was passed five years ago
and remains valid until July’s nuclear deal goes into effect. At that
point, in line with another Security Council resolution, passed
immediately after the summer’s nuclear deal, Iran will be “called upon”
to refrain for up to eight years from any work on ballistic missiles
designed to carry nuclear weapons.
Both countries agree that the missile program
is separate from the nuclear deal, which rewards Iran’s agreement to
curb its nuclear program with the lifting of sanctions.
The Strait of Hormuz, a strategic Persian Gulf
waterway, sees nearly a third of all oil traded by sea pass through it
and has been the scene of past confrontations between America and Iran,
including a one-day naval battle in 1988.
