White House delays plan for new sanctions against Iran

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani talks to journalists after he registered for February’s election of the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that chooses the supreme leader, at Interior Ministry in Tehran December 21, 2015.

“We will vigorously press ahead with the development of missile capabilities within the framework of the country’s defense policies”, Brigadier Gen. Hossein Dehqan was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

U.S. officials have said they are permitted to respond to the missile test by imposing fresh sanctions against a list of Iranian individuals and businesses linked to the missile program.

In his letter to the president, Rezayee reminded that when the USA took hostile measures against Iran’s nuclear program and Tehran, in response, took an offensive move and increased the number of centrifuges to 20,000, the U.S. was forced to come to the negotiating table and recognize Iran’s nuclear enrichment rights. “The new sanctions come as a slap to our country”, wrote Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei in an open letter to President Hassan Rouhani, according to Mehr news agency.

“The Guards naval force had no exercise in the past week when the Americans claim that a missile or rocket was sacked in the Hormuz Strait area”, spokesman General Ramezan Sharif said.

But the threat of new sanctions – the nuclear deal is due to lift past measures that froze Iran out of the global financial system and crippled its oil exports – brought already worsening relations to a head.

“One thing the USA says it will not do is turn a blind eye to Iran’s efforts to expand its ballistic missiles regime, and they say that has nothing to do with the ongoing efforts to dismantle Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme”.

Meanwhile, in Iran, the Foreign Ministry expressed anger over new USA visa rules it says violate the nuclear deal by impeding Iranian business.

The minister said that Iran will optimize its ballistic missiles in different dimensions. At that point, in line with another Security Council resolution, passed immediately after the summer’s nuclear deal, Iran will be “called upon” to refrain for up to eight years from any work on ballistic missiles created to carry nuclear weapons.

A senior administration official said in a statement to AFP that “we’ve been looking for some time‎ at options for additional actions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program“.

Iran’s been under worldwide sanctions over its missile program since 2010 and under USA sanctions even longer.

In a series of three messages from his personal account he said “in response to new United States #sanctions planned against Iran’s ballistic missile program” he had “ordered the Defense Minister to expedite the program”.

“Publishing such lies in the current situation is more a psychological operation”, Sharif said.

Iranian and USA forces have clashed in the Gulf in the past, especially during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s after the 1979 Islamic revolution.