{"id":13607,"date":"2018-09-02T15:30:47","date_gmt":"2018-09-02T15:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13607"},"modified":"2018-09-02T15:30:47","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T15:30:47","slug":"khamenei-war-unlikely-but-iran-should-boost-defence-capability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13607","title":{"rendered":"Khamenei: War unlikely but Iran should boost defence capability"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on Iran’s armed forces to boost their defence capacities but ruled out chances of war breaking out.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Iran<\/a>\u00a0announced plans to increase its missile capacity<\/a> and acquire modern fighter jets and submarines as part of efforts to expand its military.<\/p>\n

The announcement came in\u00a0<\/span>the wake of a decision by the\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0to withdraw from a multinational nuclear deal with Iran and\u00a0reimpose sanctions<\/a>\u00a0against it.<\/p>\n

“Ayatollah Khamenei emphasised that based on political calculations there is no likelihood of a military war but added that the armed forces must be vigilant … and raise their personnel and equipment capacities,” Khamenei’s official website quoted him as telling commanders of Iran’s air defence forces on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday’s news of the military development plans came a day after\u00a0Tehran rejected a French call for negotiations on future nuclear plans, its ballistic missile arsenal and its role in ongoing regional conflicts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this week,\u00a0Iranian lawyers\u00a0asked the International Court of Justice<\/a>\u00a0to order the US to lift the sanctions, saying the measures –\u00a0which are damaging Iran’s already weak economy – violate terms of a little-known 1955 friendship treaty between the two countries.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday,\u00a0in a meeting with President\u00a0<\/span>Hassan Rouhani<\/a>\u00a0and his\u00a0cabinet, Khamenei\u00a0<\/span>warned that Iran might abandon its nuclear deal with world powers, casting doubt on the ability of European states to save the accord following the US withdrawal.<\/p>\n

He said Iran\u00a0“should give up hope on [Europe] over economic issues or the nuclear deal”, according to his website.<\/p>\n

“The nuclear deal is a means, not the goal, and if we come to this conclusion that it does not serve our national interests, we can abandon it,” he was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n

Iran would never negotiate with “indecent and confrontational” US officials on a new agreement,\u00a0Khamenei added.<\/p>\n

In August, Iran unveiled a\u00a0new domestic fighter jet<\/a>, reportedly the first to be “100-percent indigenously made”.<\/p>\n

At the time, Iranian President\u00a0Hassan Rouhani<\/a>\u00a0said the country’s military strength was designed to deter enemies and create “lasting peace”, adding it was also what deterred Washington from attacking it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on Iran’s armed forces to boost their defence capacities but ruled out chances of war breaking out. On Saturday, Iran\u00a0announced plans to increase its missile capacity and acquire modern fighter jets and submarines as part of efforts to expand its military. The announcement came in\u00a0the wake of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}