Iran unveils new missile, says seeks peace through strength

[IceWizard]

Sat Aug 22, 2015 | 4:33 AM EDT

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran on Saturday unveiled a new surface-to-surface missile it said could
strike targets with pin-point accuracy within a
range of 500 km (310 miles) and it said military
might was a precondition for peace and
effective diplomacy. The defense ministry's unveiling of the solid-fuel
missile, named Fateh 313, came little more than
a month after Iran and world powers reached a
deal that requires Tehran to abide by new limits
on its nuclear program in return for Western
governments easing economic sanctions. According to that deal, any transfer to Iran of
ballistic missile technology during the next eight
years will be subject to the approval of the
United Nations Security Council, and the United
States has promised to veto any such requests.
An arms embargo on conventional weapons also stays, preventing their import and export
for five years. But Iran has said it will not follow parts of the
nuclear deal that restricts its military
capabilities, a stance reaffirmed by President
Hassan Rouhani on Saturday. "We will buy, sell and develop any weapons we
need and we will not ask for permission or
abide by any resolution for that," he said in a
speech at the unveiling ceremony broadcast
live on state television. "We can negotiate with other countries only
when we are powerful. If a country does not
have power and independence, it cannot seek
real peace," he said. The defense ministry said the Fateh 313,
unveiled on Iran's Defence Industry Day, had
already been successfully tested and that mass
production would start soon. THREATS Iran has one of the largest missile programs in
the Middle East. It wants to export arms to its
allies in the region and import anti-missile
systems to prevent any possible attack by its
arch-foe Israel. "In our aerospace industry we have various
ballistic missiles with different ranges under
production," Defence Minister Hossein
Dehghan said on Friday. "We will continue this path with maximum power
in line with our defensive needs and
proportionate to threats ahead of us." Fars news agency, which is close to the
country's Revolutionary Guards, released a
music video on Saturday praising Iran’s missile
capabilities. It contained pictures of what the
agency called a new and unknown missile of
the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). A senior IRGC commander said on Friday Iran
would hold a large ballistic missile maneuver in
the near future. "Some wrongly think Iran has suspended its
ballistic missile programs in the last two years
and has made a deal on its missile program ...
We will have a new ballistic missile test in the
near future that will be a thorn in the eyes of our
enemies," the commander of the aerospace division of the IRGC, Brigadier General Amirali
Hajizadeh, said on Friday.



(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing
by Gareth Jones)