Credit: Wikipedia / The Emad Iranian-designed, liquid-fuel, medium-range ballistic missile  at moment of launch. 

By Gary Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC TIMES

Iran test-fired a medium range ballistic missile Saturday the U.S. says is capable of carrying multiple warheads in violation of a UN Security Council ban.  “The missile has a range that allows it to strike parts of Europe and anywhere in the Middle East,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.  He added that the test violates UN Security Council resolution 2231 that bans Iran from undertaking “any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology . . .”  The Secretary of State said the U.S. been warning for some time that Iran’s missile testing and missile proliferation is growing.

“We are accumulating risk of escalation in the region if we fail to restore deterrence. We condemn these activities, and call upon Iran to cease immediately all activities related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons,” 

U.S. Secretary of  State  Mike Pompeo   Dec. 1,  2018.

The UN body adopted the resolution, which endorsed the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, in 2015.

In the international diplomatic world, there  is always two sides to a story:

Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, however, pointed out that the language of the U.N. Security Council Resolution “calls on” rather than “forbids” Iran from testing its missiles, NBC reports. 

 The very U.N. resolution that Pompeo is citing is also the very nuclear deal the Trump administration withdrew from earlier this year, Parsi added.