{"id":179963,"date":"2018-12-04T07:29:41","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T07:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=179963"},"modified":"2018-12-06T04:38:15","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T04:38:15","slug":"iran-missile-tests-may-breach-un-resolution-france-and-uk-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=179963","title":{"rendered":"Iran missile tests may breach UN resolution, France and UK warn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction \u2013 Dec 3, 2018<\/h1>\n

The U.S. has just urged the European Union to apply new sanction on Iran over its \u201cescalating missile threat<\/a><\/span>\u201d. Unfortunately, as the following article suggests, the Europeans seem ready to comply.<\/h5>\n
Iran seems to have deliberately limited the range of its missiles to no more than 2,500 kilometres because it wants them for defensive purposes only. America, and now Europe it seems, is unconvinced.<\/h5>\n
No matter that many other countries around the world are also developing missiles, often with far greater range. The fact Iran specifically is developing its own defensive capability seems to have America concerned. Why is that? Does the U.S. want to stop Iran exporting this ability to Hezbollah and the Houthis?<\/h5>\n
Or does it want to limit Iran’s ability to defend itself so the U.S. or Israel can strike it with impunity? Ed.<\/h5>\n

Iran missile tests may breach UN resolution, France and UK warn<\/h1>\n

Patrick Wintour \u2013 Guardian Dec 3, 2018<\/h2>\n
\"Iran's<\/a>

Iran’s Sejil-2 missile, which has a range of 2,000 kilometres<\/p><\/div>\n

France and the UK have echoed warnings by Donald Trump\u2019s administration that Iran may be in breach of United Nations obligations by testing medium-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying multiple warheads.<\/span><\/p>\n

The remarks from Paris and London will be seen by the US government as the first sign that its key European partners may yet be persuaded<\/a><\/strong><\/span> to view Iran\u2019s broader behaviour as so dangerous that their support for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal can no longer be justified.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo<\/a>, criticised Iran\u2019s missile programme at the weekend and will be at a Nato foreign ministers\u2019 meeting in Brussels over the next two days to underline his message about the threat to Middle East stability posed by Iran. He is also due to meet the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Brussels.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a statement issued on Saturday, Pompeo said Iran had tested a medium-range ballistic missile, violating a UN resolution. The missile, according to Pompeo, is capable of carrying multiple warheads and \u201chas a range that allows it to strike parts of Europe<\/a> and anywhere in the Middle East\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThis test violates UN security council resolution 2231 that bans Iran<\/a> from undertaking \u2018any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Pompeo has been pressing Germany, France and the UK to join the US in withdrawing from the Iran nuclear accord signed during the presidency of Barack Obama in 2015<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. Trump unilaterally pulled out of<\/a> the deal<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May, reimposing broad economic sanctions<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, with some exemptions, on any country or company that seeks to trade with Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

The UK foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said in a statement on Saturday he was \u201cdeeply concerned by Iran\u2019s test firing of a medium-range ballistic missile. Provocative, threatening and inconsistent with UNSCR 2231. Our support for JCPOA in no way lessens our concern at Iran\u2019s destabilising missile programme and determination that it should cease.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

His remarks were backed up by the UK representative on the EU\u2019s political and security committee, Paul Johnston, who said it was important to address the breadth of the Iranian challenge, and added that \u201cimportant discussions would be held at the EU foreign affairs council on 10 December\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Monday the French president\u2019s office echoed the UK in saying it was deeply concerned and the tests were \u201cprovocative and destabilising\u201d. It urged Iran to stop all testing of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Iranian foreign ministry and many independent experts challenged the claim that the tests breached the UN resolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s foreign ministry spokesman, Bahram Ghasemi, said: \u201cIran\u2019s missile programme has a defensive nature and no UN security council resolution has banned Iran\u2019s missile programme or missile tests.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The language of the UN resolution \u201ccalls on\u201d rather than \u201cforbids\u201d Iran from testing its missiles, according to Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council<\/a>. The UN resolution cited by Pompeo is the nuclear deal the Trump administration withdrew from this year, Parsi added.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a presentation on Thursday, Brian Hook, the US special representative on Iran, attacked the US\u2019s European allies, saying that since leaving the deal US officials had found \u201cfreedom and leverage\u201d to tackle Iran\u2019s regional influence, and he chided other nations for not getting on board.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe current international environment has created unacceptably low expectations for the regime in Tehran,\u201d he said. \u201c[If] the demands of … the Iranian regime seem too many, it is because Iran\u2019s malign activities are too numerous.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In fact they DO NOT breach any resolution, as the UN did not \u201cforbid\u201d missile tests. However by echoing the US, France and Britain are moving alongside Trump and his increasingly hard line on Iran. Will they now also abandon the nuclear accord? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179963"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179990,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179963\/revisions\/179990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}