Russia defends Iran as regime tests yet another missile

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has successfully test-fired a naval missile, the semi-official news agency Tasnim said yesterday, a move likely to heighten concern in Washington, whose warships operate in the waters near Iran and who recently slapped further sanctions on Tehran for testing ballistic missiles.

Tasnim said the missile, developed and produced domestically in Iran and called the Hormuz 2, could destroy moving targets at sea at ranges up to 300 kilometres.

“The naval ballistic missile called Hormuz 2 this week has successfully destroyed a target which was 250 km away,” said Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force, according to Tasnim.

Russia shields Iran

Iran’s missile tests have recently resulted in the rogue regime attracting additional US sanctions against it. Following a series of missile tests in January by Tehran, Washington slapped sanctions on people and businesses associated with the IRGC in early February, including Iranian proxies such as the Lebanese Shia jihadist movement Hezbollah.

Read: Iran test-fires new missiles in naval drills

While the United States has not yet released a statement on Iran’s latest ballistic missile tests, UN Security Council permanent member state, Russia, has sought to pre-empt any possible moves to sanction its Iranian ally.

Al Jazeera cited Russian news agency Interfax who quoted a source within the Russian foreign ministry last night, indicating that Russia did not believe that Iran’s tests in the Gulf of Oman, connected to the Arabian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, were a breach of Tehran’s international obligations.

 The source said:

Iran has not committed any breach in this situation, because these actions [of testing naval ballistic missiles] are not forbidden by the resolutions of the Security Council…or the Iranian nuclear agreement

Russia is a party to the P5+1 nuclear accord, also known as the JCPOA, that sought to derail Iran’s ambition to acquire atomic weapons, and which was later codified in UNSC Resolution 2231, a resolution the United States cited when the US Treasury slapped further sanctions on Iran last month.

According to Resolution 2231, accepted by all Security Council members, Iran is banned from testing ballistic missiles.

US, Iran showboating in Gulf

Yesterday’s missile test is the latest event in a long-running rivalry between Iran and the United States in and around the Strait of Hormuz, which guards the entrance to the Gulf. About 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes through the waterway, which is less than 40 kilometres wide at its narrowest point.

Most recently, several Iranian fast-attack boats came within 600 yards (550 meters) of the USNS Invincible, a tracking ship, forcing it to change direction.

A Revolutionary Guards commander told Iranian state media on Wednesday that it was the fault of the US ship, warning the United States of the “irreversible consequences of such unprofessional actions”.

In January, a US navy destroyer fired three warning shots at four Iranian IRGC fast-attack boats near the Strait after they closed in at high speed and disregarded repeated requests to slow down.