In a statement issued on Wednesday, a total of 220 lawmakers voiced their โfull-fledged supportโ for Iranโs Armed Forces, sayingย โthe reinforcement of the defense capabilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran in line with deterrence strategyโ isย an absolute necessity to ensure the countryโs security.
Iran, “unlike other major world powers, has not defined its power based on [the possession of] weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including atomic, chemical and biological ones,โ the Iranian legislators said.
The sole way to ward off any act of aggression against Iran isย to boost the countryโs missile might, the MPs added,ย describingย certain countriesโ opposition to Iranโs defense mightย as “illogical.”
They said the countryโs missile tests were by no means in violation of UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, including Resolution 2231, which was adopted in July 2015 to endorse a nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),ย between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries.
The statement by the Iranian lawmakers came a day after the United States called an urgent meeting of the UNSC to discuss a recent missile test by Iran, which Washington alleges is against Resolution 2231.
Iranian officials say the country has carried out the missile launch as part of its program to boost defense capabilities, rejecting claims that the test was in violation of Resolution 2231.
Iranโs defensive ballistic missile program has been a bone of contention with the West. Tehran says its missile tests do not breach UNย resolutions because they are solely for defense purposesย and not designed to carry nuclear warheads.
Arms control experts have also said that Iranโs missile tests are not banned under the nuclear agreement and the UNSC resolution, because Iran’s missiles are not meant to deliverย nuclear warheads.
‘No permission needed to boost national missile work’
Meanwhile, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said Iran needed no permission to develop its missile capabilities.
โWe will not ask permission from any country or international organization to expand our conventionalย defense capabilities,โ Shamkhani said in a meeting with visiting Armenian Defense Minister Vigenย Sargsyan on Wednesday.
โWe will firmly counter any foreign interference when it comes to defense matters, including the Islamic Republic of Iranโs missile might,โ he added.
Also on Wednesday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-e-Ravanchi, who was a member of Iranโs nuclear negotiating team, rejected claims that Tehranโs missile tests violated UNSC Resolution 2231.
โThe issue of our missile [program] is by no means a breach of UNSC Resolution 2231, because our missiles have not been designed to carry a nuclear warhead and we have stressed this issue both verbally and in the form ofย registered Security Council documents,”ย the diplomat said during a meeting with members of theย Iranian Parliament’s Committeeย on National Security andย Foreign Policy.
‘Iran missile tests don’t breach JCPOA’
Meanwhile, Nabila Massrali, the spokeswoman for European Union foreign policy chiefย Federica Mogherini, told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that โthe Iranian ballistic-missile program was not partโ of the 2015 nuclear deal and โhence the tests are not a violation of it.โ
Separately, Russiaโs Deputy Foreign Ministerย Sergei Ryabkov, who was part of the Russian negotiating team in the talks that resulted in the conclusion of the JCPOA, rejected the US claims that Iranโs missile tests violated the UN resolution, saying the resolution calls on Tehranย only to abstain from launching missiles that canย โcarry nuclear warheads.โ
Russia is confident that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, he added.