Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency says the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has launched a second satellite into space. IRNA said that the Guard launched the Noor 2 into a low orbit around the Earth. Noor means “light” in Farsi.
The Guard launched its first Noor satellite in 2020, revealing to the world it ran its own space program.
Iran, which long has said it does not seek nuclear weapons, previously maintained that its satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component. U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organized military nuclear program in 2003. Mora’s comments mirror those of British and French negotiators at the Vienna talks, which has been working to find a way to get America back into the accord it unilaterally abandoned in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump. It also hopes to get Iran to again agree to measures that drastically scaled back its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian spoke Monday by phone with Lavrov, with the sanctions threat apparently discussed, according to a statement from his office.