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US accusations on Iran’s missile program ‘completely invalid’

Tuesday, 15 March 2016 5:53 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 15 March 2016 5:52 PM ]

The latest US accusations against Iran’s ballistic missile program are “completely invalid” and were made under pressure from the Zionist lobby in Washington, an American writer and retired professor says.

“The US has fabricated the issue of the missiles in order to retract, go back on its [nuclear] agreement,” said James Petras, a professor emeritus of sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada.

The accusations were made “under the pressure of the electoral [presidential] campaign and the pressure of the Israeli government and its representatives in the United States,” Petras told Press TV on Tuesday.

“This proposal results from a speech [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu recently made and the US government…simply are echoing the Israeli position,” he added.

On Monday, Washington vowed to continue pushing for UN Security Council action on Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests and accused Russia of looking for reasons not to respond to Iranian missile tests.

“This merits a Council response,” US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the 15-nation Security Council convened at Washington’s request.

Power was referring to comments from Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who made clear that in the view of veto-wielding Russia, Iran’s ballistic missile tests did not violate resolution 2231, adopted in July, which endorsed a nuclear agreement between Tehran and six world powers.

Last week, Iran fired Qiam ballistic missile from silo-based launchers in different locations across the country and successfully test-fired two more ballistic missiles of the Qadr family.

Washington claims that Tehran’s missile program is a threat to global security but Iran categorically denies this, arguing that its missile program is solely defensive.

Resolution 2231 “calls upon” Iran to refrain from certain ballistic missile activity. Western nations see that as a clear ban, though China and other council members agree with Russia’s and Iran’s view that such work is not banned.

Washington has said the tests did not violate the nuclear deal.

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