Iran to carry on with missile program despite US sanctions: spokesman

“Iran will respond to such (U.S.) acts of propaganda and harassment by seriously continuing its missile program and enhancing its defensive capabilities and national security”, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said at his weekly press briefing.

The US had launched the sanctions on Sunday amid worries that Iran’s ballistic missile program would be used to carry atomic warheads.

A fifth prisoner, the American student Matthew Trevithick, was released separately from the other four on Saturday, a USA official said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed late on Saturday that Tehran had complied with its obligations under last summer’s accord, leading the United States and the European Union to lift sanctions imposed over Iran’s disputed nuclear programme that crippled its economy for a decade.

“There are no obstacles to USA companies’ investments in Iran”, Rouhani said at a news conference in Tehran.

President Barack Obama said Sunday the release of five Americans imprisoned in Iran and the country’s completion of steps to curtail its nuclear program mark clear victories for his diplomacy-first foreign-policy doctrine.

“I thank God for this blessing & bow to the greatness of the patient nation of Iran”, President Hassan Rouhani said in a Twitter message.

“Iran will not get its hands on a nuclear bomb”, Obama said.

The announcement of the new sanctions came hours after three Americans detained by Iran – including the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian – boarded a Swiss plane departing Tehran.

The U.S.in turn offered clemency or pardons to seven Iranians, six of them dual U.S.-Iranian citizens, who were convicted or awaiting trial in the U.S. None was associated with terrorism-related offenses or violent crimes, according to the administration.

“In the new circumstances created with the implementation of JCPOA, the IAEA and Iran now have more conducive grounds to extend cooperation”, he added.

The United States is scheduled to release $100 billion in frozen assets held in worldwide banks and will lift a ban imposed on companies and countries to conduct business with the Islamic Republic.

“They never gave in and they never gave up”, Obama said of the Americans, some of whom reportedly experienced torture in years-long detentions.