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10 January 2012 - 22:18

A member of Iran's Assembly of Experts Hassan Rohani has censured Turkey for harboring a NATO missile system on its soil, calling on the Ankara government to scrap the planned system.

In a meeting with Turkey's Ambassador to Tehran Umit Yardim on Tuesday Rohani said because the US Secretary of State has stated Iran is the target of the missile system we did not expect the Turkish government and officials, who are among our good friends, to accept the deployment of the NATO missiles on their soil.

Rohani, who is also the director of Iran's Expediency Council's Center for Strategic Research, called on Turkey to prepare the grounds for restoring complete confidence in the existing all-out ties between Ankara and Tehran.

The Turkish ambassador, for his part, said the system would pose no threat to any country, including neighboring states.

Yardim asserted that although the system has been deployed by NATO, it is under the surveillance and control of Turkey.

On September 2, 2011, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal announced the country's decision to host a missile shield developed by the United States for NATO, on its territory.

A military facility in the village of Kurecik, 700 kilometers from the Iranian border, has been picked as the site for the missile system.

Both Russia and Iran have expressed their opposition to the US-led missile plan.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that the missile system is not against any country; however, commentators believe Turkey faces no missile threat from its neighbors, and did not need to accept the system.

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News ID 181361