The UK Government has condemned Iran after its Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) this week successfully launched a military satellite into orbit for the first time.
The satellite, called Nur (Light), was launched on Wednesday in the remote Central Desert using a previously unheard-of satellite carrier and reportedly reached an orbit of 264 miles.
Responding to the launch, the Foreign Office said it was of “significant concern and inconsistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2231”. Calling on Iran “abide” by the UNSCR, the Foreign Officer emphasised that the UK has “significant and longstanding concerns, alongside our international partners, over Iran’s ballistic missile programme, which is destabilising for the region and poses a threat to regional security”.
Some experts have warned that Iran’s newly discovered secret military space program could advance its ballistic missile development. The UK and its allies have repeatedly expressed concerns over Iran’s ballistic missile programme, which are the principle means for delivering a nuclear warhead.
Following the launch, the IRGC’s commander-in-chief, Maj-Gen Hossein Salami, said Iran had taken “a major step in promoting the scope of [its] strategic information capabilities”. He further said, “today, we are looking at the Earth from the sky, and it is the beginning of the formation of a world power”.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry also denounced the development: “Israel strongly condemns the military satellite launch attempt by the Revolutionary Guards, a terror organisation that is recognised as such by the United States…Israel calls on the international community to condemn the launch and impose additional sanctions on the Iranian regime to deter it from its defiant and dangerous activities”.
The launch came in the same week U.S. President Donald Trump instructed the U.S. Navy to “shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea”. The announcement follows an incident last week when 11 IRGC Navy vessels “harassed” six U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships in the Gulf at “extremely close range and high speeds”. The incident is the latest in a series of skirmishes between the U.S. and Iran following the targeted assassination of the IRGC’s Quds Force Commander-in-Chief Qasem Soleimani in January.
Earlier this year, an Iranian attempt to put its Zafar communications satellite failed, and it had two further failed attempts last year, including an unexplained explosion of a satellite launch vehicle in August 2019.
