TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iranian state television said on Sunday that Tehran had launched a solid fuel rocket into space, prompting a rebuke from Washington ahead of the expected resumption of stalled talks on Tehran’s broken nuclear deal with the world powers.
It is unclear when or where the rocket was launched, but the announcement came after satellite photos showed preparations at the Imam Khomeini spaceport in Iran’s rural province of Semnan, the site of frequent failed attempts by Iran to put a satellite into orbit.
State media broadcast dramatic images of the blast against the backdrop of rising tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program, which is advancing with declining international oversight.
Iran had previously acknowledged that it was planning more tests for the satellite carrier rocket, which it first launched in February last year.
Ahmad Hosseini, a spokesman for Iran’s Defense Ministry, said Zuljanah, a 25.5-meter-long rocket, was capable of carrying a 220-kilo (485-pound) satellite that would eventually collect data in Earth orbit. low and will promote Iran’s space industry. Zuljanah is named after the horse of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
The White House said it was aware of Iran’s announcement and criticized the measure as “useless and destabilizing.”
The release comes just a day after EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell traveled to Tehran in a bid to revive negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program that have stalled for months. Some significant points of conflict remain, including Tehran’s demand that Washington lift terrorist sanctions on its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
Borrell said on Saturday that talks on the nuclear deal would resume in an unnamed Persian Gulf country in the coming days, and Iranian media reported that Qatar would likely host the negotiations.
Former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal in 2018 and re-imposed overwhelming sanctions on Iran. Tehran responded by greatly increasing its nuclear work and is now enriching uranium closer than ever to arms levels.
In a new escalation that limits the international community’s view on its nuclear program, Iran withdrew more than two dozen International Atomic Energy Agency cameras from its nuclear sites this month. The agency’s director described the move as a “fatal blow” to the torn nuclear deal.
Tehran rocket launches have raised alarm in Washington amid the outcome of the nuclear deal. The U.S. warns that the launches challenge a UN Security Council resolution calling on Iran to stay away from any ballistic missile-related activity capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
The White House said Sunday it pledged to use sanctions and other measures to prevent further advances in Iran’s ballistic missile program.
The U.S. Intelligence Community’s 2022 threat assessment, released in March, states that this satellite launch vehicle “shortens the timeline” of an intercontinental ballistic missile for the ‘Iran, as it uses‘ similar technologies ’.
Iran, which has long said it is not looking for nuclear weapons, maintains its satellite launches and rocket tests have no military component.
While the Iranian government has stepped up its focus on space, sending several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launching a monkey into space, the program has seen recent problems. There have been five consecutive failed launches for the Simorgh program, a type of satellite-carrying rocket. A fire at the Imam Khomeini spaceport in February 2019 also killed three investigators.
The launch pad used in preparations for the Zuljana rocket launch remains marked by an August 2019 explosion that even caught the attention of then-President Trump. He later tweeted what appeared to be a classified surveillance image of the launch failure. Satellite images from February suggested a failed launch of Zuljana earlier this year, although Iran did not recognize it.
Meanwhile, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard unveiled in April 2020 its own secret space program by successfully launching a satellite into orbit. The Guard operates its own military infrastructure parallel to Iran’s regular armed forces.
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DeBre reported from Dubai, UAE. Associated Press writer Tom Strong in Washington contributed to this report.