President Trump: Iran Has Been ‘Put on Notice’ for Firing Ballistic Missile

WASHINGTON (Reuters) —
This 2015 file photo claims to show the launching of an Emad long-range ballistic surface-to-surface missile. (Iranian Defense Ministry via AP)

President Donald Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that “Iran has been formally put on notice” for firing a ballistic missile, after his administration said on Wednesday it was reviewing how to respond to the launch.

The early morning Twitter post also said: “Should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them!”

A second tweet read: “Iran was on its last legs and ready to collapse until the U.S. came along and gave it a lifeline in the form of the Iran Deal: $150 billion.”

President Trump has frequently criticized the Iran nuclear deal, calling the agreement weak and ineffective.

Meanwhile, a top adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday Iran will not yield to U.S. threats over a ballistic missile test. Iran said on Wednesday it had tested a new ballistic missile but said it did not breach a nuclear deal reached with six major powers in 2015 or a U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the accord.

“This is not the first time that an inexperienced person has threatened Iran … the American government will understand that threatening Iran is useless,” Ali Akbar Velayati said.

“Iran does not need permission from any country to defend itself,” he was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

Velayati did not identify any U.S. official specifically.

A U.S. official said Iran had test-launched a medium-range ballistic missile on Sunday and it exploded after traveling 630 miles; a claim Iran has denied.

“The missile test on Sunday was successful … the test was not a violation of a nuclear deal with world powers or any U.N. resolution,” Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan told the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

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