Western countries fear that Iran’s Simorgh space launch vehicle could be used as a nuclear missile. Photo: Iran official.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, wrote on Wednesday to both the Security Council and the global intergovernmental organization’s secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, with a stark warning about Iran’s growing support for terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“As long as we allow the Iranian regime to violate this Council’s prohibitions with impunity, it will be a source of weapons to terrorist groups that will only grow in volume and destructive capability,” Haley wrote. “The United States will continue to raise this issue of Iranian non-compliance with international obligations at every opportunity.”

Haley’s comments on the Tehran regime’s increased financing, training and political support for terrorist groups in the Middle East came as the US joined with the United Kingdom, France and Germany in condemning Iran’s July 27 launch of a satellite-carrying rocket into space. Iran’s action was, the four countries said, a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which calls on Iran not to undertake ballistic missile activity as part of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.

The US and its allies pointed out that if Iran’s Simorgh space launch vehicle was adapted as a ballistic missile, it would have the “range and payload capacity to carry a nuclear warhead.”

“The world must not allow Iran to act in defiance of the Security Council and its resolutions,” Haley said. “The United States will be vigilant in ensuring that Iran is held accountable for such behavior.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the charges, describing its missile program as a “domestic policy of the country, deterrent and at service (sic) of regional peace and security.” Ballistic missile development and testing is carried out under the auspices of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the most powerful military institution in Iran.

Russia’s new UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, stood up for the Iranians on Wednesday, telling reporters that Tehran had not violated its commitments under the nuclear deal.