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TOP STORIES
Iran conducted its first ballistic missile test under
Donald Trump's presidency, in yet another apparent violation of a United
Nations resolution, U.S. officials told Fox News on Monday. The launch
occurred Sunday at a well-known test site outside Semnan, about 140 miles
east of Tehran, Fox News was first to learn. The Khorramshahr
medium-range ballistic missile flew 600 miles before exploding, in a
failed test of a reentry vehicle, officials said. Iran defense minister
Brigadier Gen. Hossein Dehqan said in September that Iran would start
production of the missile. U.N. resolution 2231 -- put in place days
after the Iran nuclear deal was signed -- calls on the Islamic Republic
not to conduct such tests... The U.S. intelligence community was able to
identify Sunday's launch due to its robust satellite network. The
overhead system can detect the heat signature of missile launches and
explosions from bombs being dropped around the world... "Iran's
missile tests are an unacceptable act of aggression-something we have
seen occur time and again for the last 18 months," Ambassador Mark
D. Wallace, CEO of the non-profit United Against Nuclear Iran, responded.
The U.N. Security Council scheduled urgent consultations
Tuesday on an Iranian ballistic missile test at the request of the United
States. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations said it wanted the U.N.'s
most powerful body to discuss Sunday's launch of a medium-range
missile... Iran is the subject of a United Nations Security Council
resolution prohibiting tests of ballistic missiles designed to deliver a
nuclear warhead. As part of the 2015 nuclear deal, the U.N. ban was
prolonged by eight years, although Iran has flaunted the restriction...
Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
condemned Iran for the missile test. "No longer will Iran be given a
pass for its repeated ballistic missile violations, continued support of
terrorism, human rights abuses and other hostile activities that threaten
international peace and security," Corker, a Republican from
Tennessee, said in a written statement.
A row over U.S. visa bans may further weaken Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani's efforts to attract foreign investors to Iran,
particularly if it slows the implementation of deals for Western
aircraft, officials and analysts said. The deals for 80 Boeing jets and
100 from Europe's Airbus struck last year are seen by Western investors
as a crucial test as they seek business in Iran in the wake of the
nuclear deal that led to the lifting of most sanctions. People involved
in the airline deals say it is too early to assess the impact of the U.S.
visa ban but worry that hardening rhetoric in Tehran and Washington can
only add to a list of complications that could slow, if not endanger, the
jet sales... "It will make people more nervous, more risk-averse,
more inclined to wait and see," said a senior Western financier, who
asked not to be named. Iranian officials say that even before Trump
imposed restrictions on travel to the United States from seven mainly
Muslim countries, concerns about what the new U.S. president might do had
already put the brakes on post-sanctions business... "The process
has been very slow ... foreign investors were very interested to work in
Iran, but since Trump's election the process has almost stopped.
Investors are worried about possible U.S. punishments if they work with
Iran," a senior economy ministry official told Reuters.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Iran on Tuesday warned the United States against
"creating new tensions" over its ballistic missile tests as
Washington called for urgent talks at the UN Security Council on the
issue. The row comes against a backdrop of already-strained relations
over US President Donald Trump's travel ban on citizens from Iran and six
other Muslim-majority countries. The European Union appealed to Tehran to
refrain from activities such as the missile tests "which deepen
mistrust". But the diplomatic push by the West quickly ran into
trouble as Russia said a missile test would not breach a UN resolution on
Iran's nuclear programme... "We hope that Iran's defence programme
is not used by the new US administration... as a pretext to create new
tensions," Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said at a
press conference with Jean-Marc Ayrault. Iran says its missiles do not
breach United Nations resolutions because they are for defence purposes
and not designed to carry nuclear warheads.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday
he planned to push U.S. President Donald Trump to renew sanctions against
Iran during a visit to Washington next month, complaining that Iran had
once more tested a ballistic missile... In a statement on his personal
Twitter account, around the same time the White House announced his Feb.
15 visit, Netanyahu said: "Iran again launched a ballistic missile.
This is a flagrant violation of a Security Council Resolution." ...
"In my upcoming meeting with President Trump I intend to bring up
the renewal of sanctions against Iran," Netanyahu said. "Iran's
aggression cannot be left without a response."
France vowed on Monday to defend Iran's nuclear deal,
which U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to tear up, but said it
was imperative Tehran abide strictly by the conditions of the accord.
Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault arrived in the Iranian capital just as
relations between Tehran and the new U.S. leadership were strained by new
U.S. immigration orders that the French minister called
"dangerous" and said should be revoked... "I'm coming as
the defender of the accord, but to be vigilant and explain that they (the
Iranians) must be irreproachable," Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters
after landing in Tehran... Ayrault said that while Tehran had
"largely" kept to the terms of the deal, it had pushed the
spirit of the accord over the past year by carrying out several ballistic
missile tests. "We want this agreement to be respected,"
Ayrault said... "We will discuss our disagreements, notably on
Syria. "We had hoped Iran would be less aggressive in the
region," Ayrault said, referring to the period since the nuclear
deal.
PROXY WARS
The armed Houthi movement attacked a Saudi warship off the
western coast of Yemen on Monday, causing an explosion that killed two
crew members and injured three others, Saudi state news agency SPA
reported. Separately, the Houthis said they launched a ballistic missile at
a Saudi-led coalition military base on the Red Sea island of Zuqar
between Yemen and Eritrea on Tuesday morning, according to the group's
official news channel al-Masira... The attacks signal an escalation to
weeks of combat on Yemen's western coast between the Iran-allied Houthis
and the coalition backing Yemen's internationally recognized government.
"A Saudi frigate on patrol west of Hodeidah port came under attack
from three suicide boats belonging to the Houthi militias," the
Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said in a statement on SPA.
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