Tehran - Iran launched into orbit its first domestically
produced satellite Tuesday morning, the official news agency IRNA
reported.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the launching of the
satellite called Omid, or hope, on a domestically produced Safir 2
rocket, IRNA said.
The United States said it was concerned about the launch because
much of the technology involved was the same as that involved in
long-range ballistic missiles.
'This action does not convince us that Iran is acting
responsibility to advance stability or security in the region,' White
House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
US President Barack Obama's administration has indicated in the
past that it would be willing to engage diplomatically with Iran, and
Gibbs said Tuesday that the US would continue to 'use all elements of
our national power to deal with Iran and to help it be a responsible
member of the international community.'
Acting State Department spokesman Robert Wood noted that a UN
Security Council resolution prohibits Iran from engaging in missile-
related activities and said the development would likely come up in
discussions Tuesday in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's
meetings with British Foreign Minister David Miliband and German
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The televised launch came on the 30th anniversary of the 1979
Islamic revolution.
The Safir rocket was tested twice last year and hailed by Tehran
as major progress in Iran's aerospace technology, in spite of
international sanctions because of its nuclear programmes.
The government insists the sanctions have not affected Iran's
development and even encouraged local experts to increase the
country's technological advance.
Ahmadinejad proclaimed on state television that scientists put the
first satellite into orbit and established Iran's presence in space
with a message of peace and brotherhood.
The president rejected Western charges that the country's
aerospace projects had any military aims and said that unlike in the
West, Iran's technology was 'celestial.'
Tehran has often claimed its satellite projects are scientific
rather than military projects, and blamed the West of trying to
distort Iran's scientific achievements by portraying them as
aggressive.
The United States and Israel voiced concern about the test
launches last year, because the same technology could be used to
carry ballistic missiles.
But Iran's defence ministry said the world was aware that the
project was just an 'ultra-modern scientific achievement' for Iran,
and criticized the US and Israel for distorting the motives of the
'technological breakthrough.'
Tehran also plans to help other Islamic states launch satellites.
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