The Treasury Department placed sanctions Friday on six Iran-based satellite companies following a recent Iranian rocket launch that State Department officials warn breached a UN Security Council resolution.
The companies are owned by the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, an entity central to Iran’s ballistic missile program. The sanctions were placed in response to Iran’s continued provocative actions, including its recent launch, according to a Treasury Department press release Friday.
Iran state TV reported Thursday that the country had successfully tested a rocket that could send satellites into orbit. The action breaches a UN Security Council resolution due to the possibility that it could be used in ballistic missile development, according to the State Department.
“We would consider that a violation of UNSCR 2231,” State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said at a briefing with reporters Thursday. “We consider that to be continued ballistic missile development. … We believe that what happened overnight, in the early morning hours here in Washington, is inconsistent with the Security Council resolutions.”
Iranian state television showed footage of the firing of the rocket.
A US defense official confirmed the launch to CNN and said the US is still assessing how successful it was. The US had intelligence that the launch was coming and it was not a surprise, according to the official.
The US military is saying it has not detected a new satellite in orbit in the wake of the Iranian space launch. A spokesman for US Strategic Command Joint Space Operations Center, Air Force Capt. Brian Maguire, told CNN there was “nothing new to add to the satellite catalog” following the reported launch.
