Iran missile program in line with UN Charter: Advisor

Press TV has conducted an interview with Seyed Majid Tafreshi Khameneh, a commentator and legal advisor from Tehran, about the importance of Iran’s Army Day parade amid baseless US allegations against the Islamic Republic’s defense might.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: I like to get your opinion on the significance of today’s military parades.

Khameneh: Of course, as you mentioned the significance of the parade is important not just for Iran but all the countries in the world, why? because the United Nations charter gives the right of defense for all the member states and Iran is not an exemption here.

Then what is important especially for Iran that is located in a very crucial part of the world is always defending our values. And the defense issues always must be on the top of the list of the request of that specific nation.

Press TV: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke about the country’s military capabilities, highlighting that it’s merely for defensive purposes. Now we know Iran’s missile defense program has been put under the spotlight recently by the United States. However, the missile defense program along with Iran’s deterrence capabilities have been described as Iran’s right to defend itself, as you mentioned, and also non-negotiable. Talk to us more about that please.

Khameneh: Of course, it is not negotiable. As I said the defense values and defense issues are already recognized by international law based on the United Nations Charter Article 51, and then how we can defend our values without what we need!

And the missile issue, I don’t know why they repeating this allegation a thousand times [about it]. If they repeated it millions of times, this is not changing the reality that Iranians like other countries need the minimum standard of any weapons like missiles based on international law for defending themselves.

They are talking about the range of these missiles. This is very ridiculous. They’re from the right side to the left side of Iran, from the north to the south is more than 2000 kilometers; then, all these missiles should be understandable that they are based on defensive values.

We need to keep the security of our borders from any point of Iran. Then, there is no doubt that missiles and other vehicles that already recognized and they are legitimate must be followed. And Mr. Rouhani, the previous president, the next president and then our Leader always repeated that these are for defensive issues and these are not for threatening the security of any country.

Then these allegations all are baseless, and they should change their hegemonic policy and find the other story for increasing the instability in our region. The missile issue is already solved and Iran even after the negotiations with the P5+1 mentioned strongly that we never ever are going to talk about red-lines and one of them is our missile issue.

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