(newsweek) -- The commander of the Iranian navy told the country’s semiofficial news agency, Fars, that Iran’s nuclear agency was under orders to start producing nuclear reactors for fueling and propulsion systems that could be used on ships and submarines.
Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said the new destroyer would be more advanced than its two predecessors, Jamaran and Damavand. "I think that we will manage to accomplish this task in the current year," he added.
The announcement of the plans for Iran’s navy came at a time of ratcheting tensions with the United States over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. In 2015, Tehran signed an agreement with the U.S. and other world powers, giving up its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly railed against the deal, brokered by his predecessor Barack Obama, and used his maiden speech at the United Nations General Assembly to call the agreement an “embarrassment.”
On Saturday, the Iranian government aired footage of a ballistic missile test it said it had carried out following a military parade in Tehran.
The U.S. has said that Iranian actions such as the testing of ballistic missiles violate the nuclear agreement in spirit, though not technically breaking the deal. Reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have shown Iran continues to comply with the terms of the 2015 agreement.
Iran, while condemning Trump over his bellicose rhetoric, has vowed not to break the nuclear accord. Sayyari said the nuclear submarines would be built within the framework of the deal. "We will certainly carry the job within the framework of the nuclear deal and the safeguard agreements and will not do anything beyond that," he said.
Tehran will also consult with the director general of the IAEA as it builds the nuclear engines, Sayyari added.
(Photo: Iranian military personnel place a national flag on a submarine during the Velayat-90 navy exercises in the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran on January 3, 2012. Iran has announced plans to build nuclear-powered submarines and a new destroyer. AFP/Getty)