The Algemeiner:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced on Monday that he had fulfilled his pledge to replace the country’s centrifuges with the most advanced and modern ones – and that the plan to make a nuclear propulsion system operative is underway, the regime-aligned news agency Tasnim reported.
Rouhani’s declaration – made during a ceremony in Tehran to unveil Iran’s Charter on Citizens’ Rights — came a day after the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force boasted to a gathering of academics about the quality and quantity of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, according to the semi-official state news agency Fars.
“We will not stop enhancement of our capability, knowledge and production in defense fields, specially the missile industry,” Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh reportedly told the audience in Tehran on Sunday.
It also coincided with a statement made by Iranian Deputy Transport Minister Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan, who told Reuters — according to Tasnim — that Tehran is “not concerned, though should not ignore the possibility” that the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump will derail the Islamic Republic’s deals with aviation giants Boeing and Airbus by imposing new sanctions.
If that were to happen, Fakhrieh Kashan said, Tehran “would consider it a violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – the nuclear deal — which explicitly provides for the possibility [of] the purchase of aircraft and their sale by manufacturers.”
