English transcript

Mr. Arachi, if I may, we heard from the president first in his State of the Union address that

took place on Tuesday and again this morning in recorded remarks that I'm sure you've heard.

The president said, among other things, that Iran has been building missiles that in his

words could soon reach the American homeland.

So as it relates to Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, does Iran now have the capability

to reach the U.S. homeland?

How far removed is it from that capability?

No, no, we don't have that capability.

We have intentionally kept the range of our missiles below 2,000 kilometers.

So we don't have that capability and we don't want to do that because we don't have any hostility

against the United States people or Europeans or whatsoever.

We have built that capability in order to defend ourselves against our enemies.

And, you know, our missiles prove to be the most reliable means of defense for us.

So obviously we cannot compromise on our missiles because our security depends on them.

So the more, you know, the U.S. administration, the more Europeans or whoever insist that

Iran should disarm itself from those missiles, the more we are convinced that in order to

protect ourselves, we need those missiles.

So our missiles have defensive nature.

Our missiles is only for deterrence and defense.

They are not for aggression.

And nobody has any record of any aggression by us against our neighbors in the past 200 years.

So for clarity, so for clarity, you said that your missiles cannot reach the United States

by design, that you do not want to reach the United States, but you also said it would

be necessary as a defensive vehicle that you could if necessary.

So to be clear, are you committing that Iran is not and will not build missiles that would

have the capability to reach the United States?

I can confirm, yes.