Al-Manar | May 26, 2014
Iranian Defense Minister hit back at his US counterpart Chuck Hagel’s demand that Iran’s missile program should come under negotiation in talks between Tehran and the world powers, stressing that the Islamic Republic’s missile program is not for negotiations.
“Iran’s missile capability is defensive, conventional and deterrent and not negotiable,” Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said.
He noted that if any issue is due to be discussed after the nuclear talks, it should be the full annihilation of the Zionist regime’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to create a Middle-East free from the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) followed by the destruction of the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of the United States as the first country which has used these “dreadful weapons”.
“We ask our nuclear negotiators to focus their utmost efforts on the complete annihilation of the Zionist regime’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as the biggest danger posed to the region and world security as well as the US nuclear disarmament based on paragraph 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) alongside their negotiations with the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany),” Dehqan said, according to Fars news agency.
Moreover, the Iranian DM expressed pleasure that the Zionist regime is concerned about Iran’s deterrent power, and said if such deterrence didn’t exist, the usurper regime would seize control of the Middle-East through war and bloodshed.
Dehqan underlined that it is a shame for the US which claims to be a superpower that its defense secretary announces “Israelis have allowed us to find a way to exit from (the deadlock over) Iran’s nuclear issue”.
Earlier, Hagel said that the negotiations between Iran and the world powers should focus on the country’s missile program after the settlement of the disputes over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Iran confirms its program is for peaceful ends only insisting that is its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) while Israel, which is believed to be the sole nuclear power in the Middle East with more than 200 nuclear heads, is not a signatory for this treaty.