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Ibrahim Mousawi: US cannot put limitations on Iran’s defense powers

Saturday, 09 April 2016 1:09 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 09 April 2016 1:13 PM ]

A long-range Qadr ballistic missile is launched in the Alborz mountain range in northern Iran on March 9, 2016. (AFP photo)

Press TV has interviewed Ibrahim Mousawi, a political commentator in Beirut, about a top Iranian military official roundly rejecting US Secretary of State John Kerry’s calls for missile negotiations with Tehran.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Why do you think the United States is so concerned about Iran’s missile program?

Mousawi: It is very evident that the Americans are not happy at all about the developing of the missile programs in Iran or any other country that expresses complete independence and sovereignty from the American influence.

We know very well that the Americans have their own agenda, have their own plans and have their own hegemonic plots against the region. They do not want to see any powerful regional country that could stand up to the American hegemony, to the American hopes and to the American greed in the region. That is why they are going to be frustrated, they will feel hopeless and helpless about such kind of positions taken by the Iranian leaders and about capabilities that are not subject to their own will or determination.

Press TV: How much do you think Iran’s missile program has to be a source of concern for the US in terms of it involving Israel?

Mousawi: If the United States of America is a peaceful country, if the Israeli entity is a legal entity, if it is not on the usurpation of the Palestinian people land, then they should not have worried from the very first place but they know very well that they are powers with greed, they are powers with ambitions, they are powers with hegemonic inclinations and dimensions, they are occupying Palestine and America is supporting Israel and its occupation.

Iran is in a position to support all the oppressed people, all those who are under occupation, that is why they have every reason to worry because Iran is standing up against the hegemonic powers, against the world arrogance but at the same time Iran is expressing and exercising its right, its non-negotiable right, and we should want to hear more and more of these statements by the Iranian leaders.

Yes, it is the right of Iran to exercise its own power in order to defend itself. Yes, it is a sovereign right to Iran to develop its missile powers in order to defend itself and the American state has no right whatsoever to put itself in the position to judge Iran or to put limitations to the Iranian defense powers.

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