News / Interviews

Iran has right to self-defense under international law: Analyst

Saturday, 22 September 2018 2:30 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 22 September 2018 3:32 PM ]

This picture taken on September 22, 2018 shows the long-range Iranian missile "Khorramshahr" being shown during the annual military parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1980-1988 defensive war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, in the capital Tehran. (Photo by AFP)

An analyst believes Iran has the right to self-defense under international law, adding that the United States’ complaints about the Islamic Republic’s missile program which is part of its defense capacity are “disingenuous”.

“Iran has the right to have and develop a defense capability and part of that right includes the right to develop conventional missile technology. So the complaints that the United States expresses are disingenuous, that is to say there is nothing that Iran is doing or has done that is a violation of any principle of international law. There is nothing in international law that prevents a nation from developing a conventional missile technology and in fact that is part of the standard defensive capability that almost every developed nation in the world pursue,” Barry Grossman, an international lawyer, told Press TV in an interview on Saturday.

“So every nation has the right to develop and maintain a defense capacity and has the right to pursue its own national security and its own national interest. The real problem that the United States and its allies have with Iran has nothing to do with Iran’s supposed aggression in the region and has everything to do with the fact that America’s closest allies … Israel and Saudi Arabia … feel that Iran is their public enemy number one and a threat to their very existence,” he added.

This came after President Hassan Rouhani stressed that Iran would not abandon its defensive weapons and would rather boost them.

He made the remarks in a military parade in Tehran on Saturday to mark the beginning of the week that commemorates Iran's eight-year resistance against Iraq’s 1980-88 invasion.