TEL AVIV – A senior Iranian general warned Saturday that Tehran will increase its missile range beyond 2,000 kilometers if Europe threatens it in any way.
Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards, further added that Israel’s reluctance to go to war with Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah is because it knows that doing so will lead to its annihilation.
“If we have kept the range of our missiles to 2,000 kilometers, it’s not due to lack of technology. … We are following a strategic doctrine,” he said, according to a Reuters translation of a Fars report.
“So far we have felt that Europe is not a threat, so we did not increase the range of our missiles. But if Europe wants to turn into a threat, we will increase the range of our missiles,” he added.
In October, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards military force, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, said that Iran’s 2,000-kilometer missile range could cover “most of American interest and forces” within the region and added that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had imposed limits on the country’s ballistic missile program.
“Our missiles’ range is 2,000 kilometers, and that can be increased, but we believe this range is enough for the Islamic Republic as most of the US forces and most of their interests in the region are within this range,” Jafari said according to a Reuters translation of a report by the regime’s Tasnim news agency.
France is spearheading efforts calling for an “uncompromising” dialogue with Iran about its ballistic missile program.
“It is important to remain firm with Iran over its regional activities and its ballistic program,” French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this month.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani assured his French counterpart last week that Iran has no plans for regional hegemony.
“Our presence in Iraq and Syria is at the invitation of the governments of those countries to fight terrorism,” Rouhani said.
Rouhani added “Iran does not seek to dominate” the region, but was instead working “for peace and security and to avoid the dismembering of countries.”
Salami also said over the weekend that despite attempts from Saudi Arabia to goad Israel into war against the terror group Hezbollah, Jerusalem was too afraid.
“The Zionist regime did not respond to this request and understood that any new war would lead to their disappearance,” he said, according to Fars.
Khamenei last week urged the Muslim world to band together against “cancerous” Israel.
“Today, the issue of Palestine is the primary issue among the Muslim world, since it has been an Islamic country usurped and turned into a means of sabotaging the security of several countries in the region,” Khamenei tweeted. “This cancerous tumor [Zionist regime] should be fought against.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.