ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The secretary of Iran's Expediency Council, Mohsen Rezaei, said that Tehran will continue to enhance its missile and defense capabilities saying that both are "non-negotiable." "Iran's missiles serve deterrent purposes and if we lose them, we will be attacked," Rezaei claimed in an article published on Thursday and quoted by Iran's Tasnim News. He alleged that the United States is seeking "missile disarmament". His comments come after the United States, Britain, France and Germany sent a joint letter to the United Nations Security Council on Monday calling for action to be taken against Iran for its missile tests. Claiming that they are in violation of United Nations Resolution 2231 which forbids Iran from testing nuclear-capable missiles. However Iran's Defense Minister General Hossein Dehghan said on Thursday that he is "certain that the Security Council and the United Nations will not respond as our actions are neither a breach of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [the Iran nuclear deal] nor are they against Resolution 2231." Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council with veto powers, is against placing any additional sanctions on Iran and is unlikely to vote on imposing any new sanctions on Iran. Iran and the P5+1 countries reached a nuclear agreement last July which saw sanctions placed on Iran removed in January. However the United States remains wary over Iran's missile testing and has placed sanctions on individuals and entities with connections to it in recent weeks.
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