Iran on Saturday rejected a Reuters report that Tehran has moved missiles to Iraq, saying it aimed to hurt Iran\u2019s ties with neighbours, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.<\/p>\n
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Twitter he was \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d by the reports that Iran was transferring ballistic missiles into Iraq. He urged Iraqi leaders to quickly form a new government after a May 12 parliamentary election.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch false and ridiculous news have no purpose other than affecting Iran\u2019s foreign relations, especially with its neighbours,\u201d Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said, according to IRNA.<\/p>\n
Iranian, Iraqi and Western sources told Reuters that Iran has given ballistic missiles to Shi\u2019ite proxies in Iraq and is developing the capacity to build more there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis news is solely aimed at creating fears in the countries of the region,\u201d Qassemi added.<\/p>\n
Pompeo, in his tweet on the reports of the transfer of the missiles, said, \u201cIf true, this would be a gross violation of Iraqi sovereignty and of UNSCR 2231.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was referring to U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which underpinned the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iraq and six world powers. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal earlier this year and his administration is currently reimposing sanctions against Tehran.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Pompeo spoke by phone with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi \u201cto reaffirm U.S. support for Iraq\u2019s efforts to form a modern, nationalist Iraqi government,\u201d State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Pompeo emphasized the importance of safeguarding Iraq\u2019s sovereignty during this critical time, she said.<\/p>\n
He also spoke to Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi to discuss political developments and relations between Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in north Iraq, Nauert added.<\/p>\n
Any sign that Iran is preparing a more aggressive missile policy in Iraq will exacerbate tensions between Tehran and Washington, already heightened by Trump\u2019s decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran on Saturday rejected a Reuters report that Tehran has moved missiles to Iraq, saying it aimed to hurt Iran\u2019s ties with neighbours, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Twitter he was \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d by the reports that Iran was transferring ballistic missiles into Iraq. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[315,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41098,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41096\/revisions\/41098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}