by Erez Linn, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Middle East Media Research Institute: As part of 2015 nuclear deal, Obama's administration gave Iran its unwritten consent to develop missiles with a range of over 2,000 kilometers • Only restriction was that missiles would not reach Europe, MEMRI says.
An Iranian missile on
display during a military parade in Tehran [Archive]
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Photo credit: Reuters  |
Former U.S. President Barack Obama's
administration had given Iran its tacit consent for the development of
ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel but not Europe, a new
report by the Middle East Media Research Institute alleged Thursday.
U.N. Resolution 2231, passed shortly after the
2015 Iranian nuclear deal was signed, calls on 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" for eight years following the nuclear deal.
Resolution 2231 went into effect on July 20, 2015.
Iran conducted a ballistic missile test
on Jan. 30. The test has been denounced as a violation of Resolution
2231, but White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the missile test did
not violate the nuclear agreement.
"It's not a direct violation. ... I think there is no question that it violates the spirit" of the agreement, he said.
Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan stressed that Iran "asks permission from no one in the matter of its defense program."
The MEMRI report claimed that "immediately
after the interim agreement was reached in Geneva, on Dec. 10, 2013, and
in reference to it, IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps] commander
Mohammad Ali Jafari said that Iran is capable of producing missiles
with a range of over 2,000 kilometers" (1,200 miles) but that Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had restricted the IRGC to a
2,000-kilometer range.
"We have the capability to increase the range
of our missiles, and our missiles should obviously reach Israel. ... The
regime's red lines were not crossed during the nuclear talks with the
P5+1 [group] and in the Geneva Agreement," Jafari said.
IRGC officials, MEMRI claimed, hinted that the
restrictions placed on Iran's missile developments as part of the
nuclear deal, stipulated only that they could not reach Europe.
The report further quoted Jafari as saying
that one of the points of Resolution 2231 "was the matter of
restrictions, which some military elements feared. ... The [Iranian]
negotiating team told the Westerners that we do not agree to these
restrictions. They [the Westerners] said that these issues must be
included in the resolution. Even when I met with the leader [Khamenei],
he said that there were no restrictions on developing defensive
capabilities. The only restriction relates to nuclear missiles, which,
obviously, we never wanted."
MEMRI argued that "although the permission
given to Iran to develop missiles capable of striking Israel is likely
not a secret annex of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], it
still constitutes unwritten consent that is an integral part of the
nuclear deal.
"It is convenient for both sides not to publish this
understanding in written form -- for Iran because it rejects any public
reference to its missile program, which it defines as defensive but is
in fact offensive; and for the Obama administration, because there would
be repercussions if it were to be revealed that it had given Iran
permission to develop missiles capable of striking Israel."
Erez Linn, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=40097
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