Defense Minister Says It’s ‘Normal’ for Iran to Test Missiles

Iran’s defense minister said on Wednesday it was “normal” for the country to test missiles as part of its defense research, Iranian media reported, after Washington said Tehran had test-fired a medium-range missile last week.

Brigadier General Amir Hatami stopped short of explicitly confirming the test. A US defense official said last week Iran had launched what appeared to be a medium-range ballistic missile that traveled some 1,000 km (620 miles), and added that the test by Washington’s arch-foe in the Middle East posed no threat to shipping or US personnel in the region.

“Such things are normal across the world,” Hatami was quoted by the semi-official news agency ISNA as saying, after being asked about the reported missile test.

“The research programs of the armed forces are drawn up and carried out every year…including missile tests.”

US President Donald Trump left world powers’ 2015 nuclear deal with Iran last year, arguing that he wanted a wider accord that not only limited Iran’s nuclear activity but also curbed its ballistic missile program and reined in its support for proxies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon. Trump tightened sanctions on Iran in May to try to scuttle its oil exports.

Iran has ruled out talks with Washington over its military capabilities, particularly the missile program that it says has only defense and deterrent purposes. The Islamic Republic denied that its missiles are capable of being tipped with nuclear warheads and says its nuclear program is peaceful.

The Trump administration has said its policies are aimed at changing Iran’s behavior in the region, not its government.

In a related development, Iran dismissed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s offer to visit and address the Iranian people as a “hypocritical gesture.”

“You don’t need to come to Iran,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, in remarks directed at Pompeo. He suggested Pompeo instead grant visas for Iranian reporters to travel to the US and interview him, accusing him of having rejected their requests.

On Monday, Pompeo tweeted: “We aren’t afraid of (Zarif) coming to America where he enjoys the right to speak freely.”

“Are the facts of the (Khamenei) regime so bad he cannot let me do the same thing in Tehran?” he said, referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “What if his people heard the truth, unfiltered, unabridged?”

Zarif, a relative moderate within Iran’s clerically-overseen political system, was an architect of the nuclear agreement. The US and Iran cut off all diplomatic relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but the US allows Iranian officials to visit the United Nations headquarters in New York.