Dubai: Iran has increased its missile production three-fold, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander said Wednesday, according to the Fars news service.
“In the past we had to do a lot of explaining to various bodies for our actions but it’s not like that anymore,” Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guards’ aerospace division said, according to Fars.
“Our production has increased three-fold compared to the past,” he said, referring to missiles.
The government, parliament and other Iranian officials had, in particular, agreed on the need for ground-to-ground missiles, Hajizadeh said.
Saudi Arabia and the US have accused Iran of illegally smuggling weapons into Yemen to sustain Al Houthi war efforts.
One such Iranian-made ballistic missile was fired towards Riyadh last year.
Although it was intercepted, Riyadh called it an ‘act of war’.
The four Western powers that are parties to the Iran nuclear deal condemned Iran last month for violating an arms embargo on Yemen, a day after Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution that took aim at Tehran over its failure to abide by the UN sanctions.
France, Germany, the United Kingdom and United States issued a joint statement saying Iran’s non-compliance, as described by a UN panel of experts, “poses serious risks to peace and stability in the region”.
The four countries called on Iran “to immediately cease all activities that that are inconsistent with or would violate the terms” of the 2015 council resolution authorising the arms embargo.
The report in January by experts monitoring sanctions against Iran concluded that Iran was in “non-compliance” with the arms embargo because it failed “to take the necessary measures” to prevent the direct or indirect supply of missiles and drones to Al Houthi militiamen fighting the Saudi-backed government.
