PHOTO: Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan “US is in a position of despair”

LATEST

Iran’s officials launched more rhetorical attacks on the US on Saturday, amid the rising tension over sanctions and Tehran’s ballistic missile tests.

Military commanders said “missile capabilities will never be up for negotiations or compromise”, while Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan declared that US Secretary of State John Kerry was “spewing nonsense”.

Despite the implementation of the July 2015 nuclear agreement, the US has continued to condemn Tehran’s missile tests. Washington and European allies claim that they violate a UN resolution, passed at the time of the deal, barring launches leading to nuclear capability. The US has imposed sanctions on individuals and companies linked to the Revolutionary Guards, while threatening to take the matter to the UN Security Council.

Iran maintains that the tests are within the resolution because the missiles, with a range of up to 2,000 km (1,240 miles), cannot carry nuclear warheads.

The diplomatic clash has escalated since the Revolutionary Guards carried out two launches in early March. The Supreme Leader has put pressure on the Rouhani Government — which continues to declare progress in foreign policy and economic planning — by declaring that the US is undermining the nuclear deal and preventing Iran’s recovery.

Speaking to a Senate committee on Thursday, Kerry said the US and allies were “prepared to work on a new arrangement to find a peaceful solution” if Iran is “prepared to cease these kinds of activities”.

Dehghan responded on Saturday with derision, putting the missile issue in the wider context of conflicts throughout the Middle East:

The US, due to the stances it has taken, is currently in a position of despair in regard to having any impact on regional trends. The US allies, given the developments in the region, are concerned about the US inability to protect their interests and back the continuation of their unjust position as Kings and Emirs.

He continued, “The Americans made a lot of efforts to promote Iranophobia and establish a massive weapons market in the region for themselves, while inducing this notion that survival of their elements in the region relies on their compliance with the US policies.”

Deriding US “meddling into other countries’ internal affairs” and support of Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen, Dehghan accused Washington of “supporting and backing global terrorism”.

Zarif: “No Compromise”

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif supported the military statements on Sunday, saying there can be no compromise over the missile program.

Speaking at a joint press conference with his Estonian counterpart, Zarif said that US Secretary of State Kerry “knows well that Iran’s missile capabilities are not open to negotiations”.

TV Producer Azizi Released from Prison

Television producer Mostafa Azizi has been released from prison with 10 months left of his two-year sentence.

Azizi, a Canadian resident, was arrested in February 2015 shortly after he returned to Iran to visit his family. He was initially sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of collusion against national security, insulting the Supreme Leader, and spreading propaganda against the system. An appeals court later reduced his prison sentence to two years.

Before his trial, Azizi spent a month in solitary confinement in Section 2A of Evin Prison, run by the Revolutionary Guards, where he was interrogated and given no access to his family or a lawyer.