Iran missile work not violating UN bans: Russia’s Churkin

… from  Press TV,  Tehran

[ Editor’s Note: It saddens me to see U.S. spokesperson reaching into the Joseph Goebbels bag of tricks of, “If you are going to tell a lie, make it a big one, as they are easier to get over on the public. Trump’s new appointees seem to be competing for the Goebbels award, with their baseless claims that Iran violated something with its missile test.

BTW, people who have conventional weapons are known to test them to make sure they are working, to iron out any bugs that might cause a malfunction and a disaster. All United  Nations countries have a sovereign right to be able to defend themselves with not only defensive weapons but retaliatory ones.

Trump’s good buddy Israel has long had the largest weapons of mass destruction stockpile — chemical, biological and nuclear weapons — totally approved of and protected by the U.S. The makes Israel by far the most dangerous threat in the region, something it relishes; and it has even threatened Europe. Its ballistic missile in development will be able to reach both Moscow and the U.S., and yet our huge outlays to Israel have helped to fund this capacity.

Part of this new bogeyman scam on Iran is to detract from Trump’s obvious approval of the Zionist WMDs. Our knuckle dragging media is in full support of the charade, as are the vast majority of Congress.

Do enjoy Mr. Churkin’s taking the U.S. “Fake Diplomacy” to the woodshed in a calm and totally rational way, something so “UnTrump”. I just love it. The Russians never resort to gimmicks in diplomacy. They think it makes one look childish, and I fully agree … Jim W. Dean ]

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– First published … February 08, 2017 –

A senior Russian diplomat has expressed surprise at an outcry provoked by the new US administration over Iranian missile work, saying Tehran’s missile tests are not violating any UN bans, legally speaking.

“This outcry about Iran’s ballistic missile launches. I was surprised to hear even American experts speaking on CNN and calling it a violation of bans by the UN Security Council,” said Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin in an interview with RT published Tuesday.

He was referring to Resolution 2231 adopted by the Security Council in July 2015 to underpin the landmark nuclear deal inked days earlier between Tehran and the P5+1 group of states, namely Russia, China, France, Britain, the US plus Germany.

The document terminated the provisions of previous UN resolutions, calling on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

Explaining the legal language used in Resolution 2231, Churkin said the document merely “calls” on Tehran not to conduct tests of missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, but does not impose any ban on Tehran.

“Those bans were there before, all those bans were lifted,” said the Russian official. “Technically or legally you cannot argue that they are violating any kind of a prohibition.”

He also said no evidence has been provided to support the claims that Tehran’s missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Late last month, Washington’s UN envoy Nikki Haley slammed a missile test by Iran as “absolutely unacceptable.”

US President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Flynn also said following the January 29 test that Washington was “officially putting Iran on notice,” claiming that the launch was “in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2231.”

The Islamic Republic has, on numerous occasions, asserted that its missiles are not designed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and that it is not involved in such missile work.

In March 2016, Russia blocked the potential ratification of a United Nations Security Council resolution against Iranian missile tests in a session called by the former US administration.

Explaining Russia’s opposition to an anti-Iran resolution, Churkin said back then that in the view of veto-wielding Russia, Resolution 2231, which endorsed a nuclear deal between Iran and six other countries, did not legally prohibit Iranian ballistic missile tests.

He said the text explicitly did not ban Iranian missile test-launches.

“A call is different from a ban, so, legally, you cannot violate a call, you can comply with a call or you can ignore the call, but you cannot violate a call,” Churkin said. “The legal distinction is there.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Churkin warned that the United States’ tensions with Iran might work to affect Moscow’s relations with Washington.

“There are so many complexities, so many issues which can create additional problems, including problems which might affect our relations with the US,” he said.

The envoy cautioned the US against behaving emotionally instead of relying on facts when it comes to Iran.

 “In international life, you have to differentiate between your emotions, what you want to see and what you have the right to expect from another country,” he said.

Churkin further took on US President Donald Trump’s recent comment to Fox News that the Islamic Republic is “terrorist state number one.”

The envoy pointed to the active role the Islamic Republic is playing in the fight against the Daesh Takfiri terror group, which is mainly active in Syria and Iraq.

Iran has been providing military advisory support to the countries’ respective militaries in their fight against the terrorists, an assistance that has been met with appreciation from both governments.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also reacted to Trump’s remarks, saying, “We disagree with this postulate.”

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Jim W. Dean

Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus.  He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022.  He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews.  He now writes and posts periodically for VT.

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