Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted Iran's satellite launch this week as "dangerous" and "provocative" and urged the international community to intervene, EDNews.net reports citing Fox News.
"For years, Iran has claimed its space program is purely peaceful and civilian," Pompeo said in a statement Saturday. "The Trump Administration has never believed this fiction. This week’s launch of a military satellite by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, makes clear what we have said all along: Iran’s space program is neither peaceful nor entirely civilian."
Pompeo said the launch proved that Iran was spreading falsehoods when it repeatedly claimed that its space program was peaceful.
"The most recent military launch, which was developed and conducted in secret, proves that these statements were lies," Pompeo said.
Pompeo said the space launch signals Iran's nuclear weapon aspirations.
"This satellite launch vehicle and others launched before it incorporate technologies identical to, and interchangeable with, ballistic missiles, including longer-range systems such as intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBMs]," Pompeo said in calling on the international community to reject Iran's development of ballistic-missile capable technologies.
"No country has ever pursued an ICBM capability except for the purpose of delivering nuclear weapons," he said.