President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday Iran has made significant progress over the past decades in science and technology, stressing that the country needs no permission from anybody for its scientific progress.
Speaking at a ceremony held in Tehran on Tuesday to commemorate National Day of Aerospace Technology, Rouhani said over the past decades Iran has made ever-increasing progress in aerospace technologies, as well as other fields of science and technology in a way that the country can boast about those developments to the world.
As evidence of those developments, Rouhani said, "Today the Iranian nation not only has the capability to build various types of satellites but also is able to put them into orbit," ISNA reported. He said all these advances would have been impossible without "national resolve" and the unified stance of officials and Iranian people.
Iran launched its first domestically built satellite, the Omid (Hope), into orbit in 2009. The country also sent its first bio-capsule containing living creatures into space in February 2010, using Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) carrier.
Earlier this month, Iran successfully launched another domestically manufactured satellite into space during the national celebrations marking the 36th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The launch was part of a 10-year strategic plan outlined by Iranian Space Agency (ISA) including sending humans as well as telecommunications and remote sensing satellites into space. Elsewhere, the president pointed to the country's advances in nuclear technology and said under his administration, "significant" progress has been made in the area of nuclear science and technology, however, the ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) have to some extent "overshadowed" those developments.
He went on to say that the current administration has managed to speed up developments in nuclear sciences, underlining that the Islamic Republic "does not ask for permission from anybody for its progress in the area of science and knowledge."
Taking Away Excuses
Rouhani also pointed to attempts by "enemies" aiming to pressure the Iranian nation using various excuses, including the country's scientific progress, and said the fact that Tehran is negotiating and interacting with the world does not mean that it is ready to abandon its scientific progress, adding that by negotiations Iran wants to "take away excuses" from powers that are seeking to harm the Iranian nation.
Some western countries have been accusing Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran, however, has denied the allegation and says its program is solely for peaceful applications, including energy production and medical research.
"Some remarks and statements (by critics) inside the country can assist our enemies in making up such excuses and level baseless accusations against the country," the president noted.
Earlier in the day, President Rouhani visited an exhibition showcasing Iran's latest developments in space technology and science, which was held on the sidelines of the ceremony.
