TEHRAN – Iran says advancement in science and research, including in aerospace field, is an inalienable right of the Iranian nation, lambasting meddlesome comments by the United States over Iran’s recent launch of a satellite carrier.
Iran’s Defense Ministry on Thursday announced that the country’s domestically-built satellite carrier rocket, Simorgh (Phoenix), successfully launched three research devices in a space research mission that scored yet another achievement for the Islamic Republic’s civilian space program.
Later on Thursday, the U.S. State Department said Washington “remains concerned with Iran’s development of space launch vehicles.” It also claimed that such satellite launches would violate a UN Security Council resolution, calling on the Islamic Republic to steer clear of any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the White House reaction, stressing that scientific and research progress, including in the field of aerospace, is the Iranian nation’s inalienable right and that such meddlesome statements would not break Iranians’ resolve to progress in that field.
“No resolution prevents the Islamic Republic of Iran from continuing its space program and the related experiments, including in the field of satellites-carriers, thus, citing UNSC Resolution 2231 is purely fallacious and fundamentally untrue,” he said.
“As previously stated, the Islamic Republic of Iran has the right to use peaceful technologies in the path of its scientific-research development according to international standards, and in so doing, it will not await the opinions of some countries that seek to impose their dictates,” Khatibzadeh added.
He also paid tribute to young Iranian scientists for their remarkable achievements in the field of aerospace despite illegal and unjust sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic.