Tehran, Iran, August 18
By Mehdi Sepahvand –- Trend:
The nominee for the position of the minister of Defense has said that a robust missile program will be high on the agenda of his prospective tenure.
“Missiles will be high on the agenda of the Ministry of Defense in the four years ahead, since the enemy is doing its best to diffuse Iran’s missile power. This is why the Defense Ministry, having a clear vision of the threats, has this important issue on its agenda,” Amir Hatami told IRNA news agency, Aug 18.
On a previous day President Hassan Rouhani’s new pick for the Defense minister position was advocating for his program in the Parliament, underlining his resolve to further enhance Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities.
“In the next four years, apart from the enhancing combat and defense capabilities, we will devote a special effort to boost our missile and ballistic, strategic air and naval, as well as rapid reaction forces,” Hatami said.
In retaliation for the new sanctions imposed by the United States, Iran's Parliament has recently given an initial approval to a bill related to the increase in expenditures for the missile program and the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The bill envisages the allocation of over $260 million each to Iran's ballistic missile program and the Quds Force (the extraterritorial special forces of IRGC), deployed on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria.
Iran justified this measure as a retaliatory step towards the legislation associated with the imposition of new sanctions, which was passed by the US Congress and signed into a law by the US President Donald Trump in early August.