Key Iran Website Says Nuclear Deal Will Not Stop Missile Program

Nour News close to Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the supreme national security council said on Thursday that Iran will not negotiate over its defense capabilities. The website also praised Tehran’s negotiators in the Vienna nuclear talks for having thwarted US attempts to force Iran to discuss its missile program.

The website boasted that while the Revolutionary Guard unveiled two underground bases for missiles and military drones on March 5, the rocket carrying the satellite lifted off on March 8.

“These developments took place while the United States and Europe, both in the JCPOA talks [in the past] and in the new process [in Vienna] were insisting that simultaneously missile and regional issues to be discussed and an agreement similar to JCPOA be signed between Iran and the West,” Nour News said.

When former president Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal known as JCPOA, one his main demands was that Iran should stop its ballistic missile program that threatened the region and could be developed into a nuclear delivery system in the future. He imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions to force Iran to renegotiate the JCPOA and accept other conditions, including limiting the missile program.

Nour news said that US pressures failed, and sanctions could not force Iran to make any concessions on other issues.

The Biden Administration took office having already signaled that it wanted to return to the JCPOA and kept Iran’s missile program and the issue of its aggressive regional policies off the table, saying that these could be pursued in future talks.

Referring to statements by Biden officials that Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ was the wrong policy that failed, Nour News said, “negotiations not only had no impact on pursuing [Iran’s] defense, missile and space projects, but the largest military drills involving missiles and drones, as well as unveiling new missile bases,” have been accomplished during nuclear talks.

Nour News then goes on enumerating two “messages”. First, “Iran is not willing to hold any sort of negotiations over its defense, space and regional issues,” and second, “any negotiations and possible agreements cannot be factors limiting Iran’s defense, missile and space programs.”

The issue of Tehran’s space program worries the United States because rockets developed to put satellites in orbit can be easily used as intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver nuclear warheads, directly putting Europe and the American mainland in danger.

Nour news then delivers a message to domestic political circles who advocated flexibility in talks with the West that their reasonings were wrong and refusing to compromise bears fruit.

“Unfortunately, in the past there was a mentality that Iran’s missile and space programs were provocative and should not be pursued while economic agreements were being signed with Western countries,” the website said. But now, amid nuclear talks in Vienna, Iran “has launched its second military satellite.”