Iran Calls US Missile Defense System a Diversion

Via Fars News Agency -

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran's Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani on Monday called US plans for an Eastern Europe missile defense shield that Washington says would protect US allies from Iran a joke, saying Tehran's missiles do not have the capability to reach Europe.

"Claims by US officials that installing a missile defense system in Europe is aimed at confronting Iranian missiles and protecting Europe against Iran are the joke of the year," Ali Larijani told IRNA.

"The range of Iran's missiles doesn't reach Europe at all," IRNA quoted the secretary of the country's top security decision-making body as saying in Iran's first public reaction to the plans.

The United States has said plans to install a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe is meant to protect NATO allies against a missile launch from Iran.

The United States made the formal request in January to place a radar base in a military area southwest of Prague, Czech Republic, and 10 interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland as part of plans for a missile defense shield. But US plans have brought a strong reaction not only from Iran but also from Russia, which accuses the United States of threatening Russian territory and of trying to start a new arms race.

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Iran is known to possess a medium-range ballistic missile called the Shahab-3 that has a range of at least 800 miles.

In 2005, Iranian officials said they had improved the range of the Shahab-3 to 1,200 miles.

Larijani said Europe was Iran's biggest trade partner and that it was illogical to talk about a potential Iranian missile threat to Europe. "Europe is our biggest trade partner. What is the logic that we may do it?," Larijani asked.

Larijani suggested that the claims by the US were aimed at shifting world attention from a bigger plan Washington may be pursuing. "It is not very unlikely that they are pursuing a bigger plan but they say other words in their statements. Missile defense shields are propaganda to divert attention from other goals and operations," IRNA quoted him as saying.