Without missiles, Iran would be ‘just like Gaza’, says president

ISLAMABAD: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday said that, without its missiles, his country would have ended up “just like Gaza”, insisting that its ballistics programme was non-negotiable.

“If the missiles we have for our defence did not exist, Israel and the United States would have ploughed Iran just like Gaza, showing no mercy to either the old or the young,” he said during a visit to Pakistan, a key mediator in talks between Tehran and Washington seeking a permanent end to the Middle East war.

“We will never negotiate with anyone, under any circumstances, ever, about our defensive capabilities,” he added.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meanwhile confirmed that the preliminary agreement signed by the US and Iran, alongside the mediating parties, made no mention of ballistic missiles.

“There cannot be double standards… that some countries can have ballistic missiles and Iran shouldn’t have. You cannot digest this duplicity,” Sharif said.

Tehran fired hundreds of missiles and thousands of drones at its Gulf neighbours and Israel during the war that was sparked by joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Iran’s missiles were initially developed to compensate for its weak air defences during the war with Iraq in the 1980s, and have since only gained range and accuracy.

Israel, located 1,500km away from Iran, has longed viewed the programme as an existential threat.

Before the war, the United States had sought to include the ballistic missile programme, as well as Tehran’s support for armed proxies, in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear activity.

In recent days, US President Donald Trump had appeared to soften his stance on the missiles issue.

“I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” he said last week at the G7 summit in France.