US seeks pretexts for new Iran sanctions: Poll

The United States is seeking a new pretext to impose new sanctions against Iran through the country's defensive missile program, a PressTV poll finds.

In a survey carried out by PressTV on April 3-May 7, some 58% of respondents believed that the US is looking to find fresh excuses for sanctioning Iran over its missile capabilities.

Some 33% said Washington has been trying to make Iran’s military vulnerable through targeting its missile program.

Only 9% of the interviewees said the US move is aimed at securing peace and stability in the Middle East.

Some 6,990 people were surveyed in the poll. The respondents were from a wide range of states, but the United States comes first, followed by the UK and Canada.

In recent years, Iran has made major breakthroughs in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in the production of important military equipment and systems.

The country has also conducted major military drills to enhance the defense capabilities of its armed forces and to test modern military tactics and state-of-the-art equipment.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully test-fired two ballistic missiles on March 9 as part of military drills to assess its capabilities. The missiles dubbed Qadr-H and Qadr-F were fired during large-scale drills, code-named Eqtedar-e-Velayat.

On March 8, Iran fired another ballistic missile called Qiam from silo-based launchers in different locations across the country.

The US claims that Iran's missile tests violate the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed a nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany – on July 14, 2015.

Iran, however, has repeatedly announced that the missile launches were not against the Security Council resolution.

On Saturday, Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said that Tehran has no limitations to holding military drills “and those who came [to the region] from thousands of kilometers away and claim to establish security in the region must know that their presence is a source of insecurity.”

On May 2, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said that Iran must show off its military power to the US in the Persian Gulf waters.

“The Persian Gulf coast and much of the coasts of the Sea of Oman belong to this powerful [Iranian] nation, therefore we have to be present in this region, [stage] maneuvers and show off our power,” the Leader said.

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