Obama: Iran ‘Doing More of What They Have Been Doing’ In Syria, ‘Often’ Violated Missile Test Prohibitions

President Obama declared that Iran is “doing more of what they have been doing” and “has often violated some of the prohibitions surrounding missile testing” during a press conference on Friday

Regarding Iran’s missile test, President Obama stated, “Iran has often violated some of the prohibitions surrounding missile testing, and our position with respect to UN resolutions, prohibitions, and potential sanctions are unchanged with respect to their — to missile programs, and this is something that I made very clear during the debate around the Iran nuclear deal, the Iran nuclear deal solves a specific problem, which is making sure that they don’t possess a nuclear weapon, and it’s our best way to do that. It does not fully resolve the wide range of issues where we’ve got a big difference, and so we are going to have to continue to put pressure on them, through the international community and where we have bilateral channels, through bilateral channels to indicate to them that there are costs to bad behavior, in the region and around the world, but we’re not going to do that more effectively if they’re also on a separate track, pursuing a nuclear weapon.”

He added, “With respect to their actions in Syria, as I’ve said before, they’re just doing more of what they have been doing for the last five years, as is Russia, and it’s an indication that their basic premise, their basic theory about how to solve Syria, has not worked and will not work.” Obama further predicted that Iran’s attempts to support Bashar al-Assad wouldn’t work.

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