TEHRAN, Iran: Iran has termed the new US sanctions against it for its ballistic missile program as “illegitimate”, and said that Tehran will continue to enhance its missile capabilities.
On Sunday, the United States Treasury Department imposed fresh sanctions against 11 people and companies involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program, claiming that the program “poses a significant threat to regional and global security.
“We will respond to such propaganda stunts and disruptive measures by more robustly pursuing our lawful missile program and promoting our defense capabilities and national security,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said during his weekly press briefing on Monday.
The spokesman said that the Islamic Republic saw fresh economic sanctions by the US as “illegitimate”.
“Iran’s missile programme has never been designed to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons,” he said.
The new measures against Iran came just one day after the US President Barack Obama lifted sanctions based on Iran’s nuclear program after it was confirmed that Tehran had complied with the nuclear deal signed with the world powers in July last year.
“We will continue to enforce these sanctions vigorously,” Obama said on a statement on the new sanctions. “We are going to remain vigilant about it.”
