Iran’s Supreme Leader Says it Will Protect ‘Nuclear and Missile Capabilities’

Tehran, MINA – Iran’s supreme leader said Thursday that the Islamic Republic will protect its “nuclear and missile capabilities” as a national asset, even as US President Donald Trump tries to get a deal on those issues.

Quoted from Arab News, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s message was delivered in a written statement read on Iranian state television, as he has since he took over after the Feb. 28 airstrike that killed his 86-year-old father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Ninety million proud and honorable Iranians inside and outside the country regard all of Iran’s identity-based, spiritual, human, scientific, industrial and technological capacities — from nanotechnology and biotechnology to nuclear and missile capabilities — as national assets, and will protect them just as they protect the country’s waters, land and airspace,” Khamenei said.

His remarks come as Iran’s oil industry is being squeezed by a US Navy blockade halting its oil tankers from getting out to sea. But the world economy is also under pressure as Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all crude oil is transported. On Thursday, the global benchmark for oil, Brent crude, traded as high as $126 a barrel.

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He said the only place Americans belong in the Arabian Gulf is “at the bottom of its waters,” as the Strait of Hormuz remains in Tehran’s chokehold, AP reported.

“By God’s help and power, the bright future of the Arabian Gulf region will be a future without America, one serving the progress, comfort and prosperity of its people,” Khamenei said in the statement.

“We and our neighbors across the waters of the Arabian Gulf and the (Gulf) of Oman share a common destiny. Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometers away to act with greed and malice there have no place in it — except at the bottom of its waters.” []

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)

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