France, Germany and the United Kingdom reiterate that Iran has ballistic missiles with nuclear capability

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(CNN) - The ambassadors of France, Germany and the United Kingdom have once again assured that Iran has developed ballistic missiles with nuclear capability, in a joint letter addressed to the UN secretary general, officially published by the UN on Wednesday.

The ambassadors listed four examples of activities that indicate nuclear-capable missiles, adding that "Iran's development of ballistic missiles with nuclear capability and related technologies is inconsistent" with a UN resolution that prevents the country from doing so.

The European countries, all signatories to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, have previously written to the UN about the alleged nuclear activity in Tehran, claiming that "these activities are the latest in a long series of advances in Iranian ballistic missile technology" .

Iran is believed to have the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East, according to US intelligence assessments, with a substantial inventory of short, medium and short range missiles, which can attack targets throughout the region.

The newly published letter cites images of a flight test for a new Shahab-3 ballistic missile, which is estimated to have a range of approximately 965 kilometers.

"The Shahab-3 reinforcement used in the test is a category 1 system of the Missile Technology Control Regime and, as such, is technically capable of delivering a nuclear weapon," says the report.

The letter notes that the Shahab-3 has been equipped with a new maneuvering re-entry vehicle that "will probably improve the accuracy of the missiles produced in the future and will improve existing stock of missiles, increasing their accuracy."

• 25 arrested in protests over rising gasoline price in Iran

The development of a viable maneuvering re-entry vehicle is a significant technological marker that, in theory, allows a ballistic missile to circumnavigate standard missile defense systems.

For years, the United States and its allies have made efforts to reduce the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear armed ballistic missile. These efforts formed a key part of a 2015 agreement aimed at restricting Tehran's nuclear capacity in exchange for lifting international sanctions.

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, withdrew his country from the agreement in May 2018. But he still has the support of five other nations: Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.

UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which supported the nuclear agreement with Iran, called on Iran to refrain from activities related to ballistic missiles designed to be able to deliver nuclear weapons.

In July of this year, Iran fired a medium-range Shahab-3 ballistic missile, according to a US official with direct knowledge of the event. According to experts, the missile test technically did not violate any UN resolution, which has been a source of frustration for critics of the agreement with Iran.

The United States has previously reiterated that Iran must end the missile tests as one of the 12 conditions it has established to end the maximum pressure campaign that the Trump administration implemented after abandoning the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Iran's Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, criticized the latest letter from European nations, describing it on Twitter as a “desperate falsehood to cover up their miserable incompetence in fulfilling [the] minimum minimum of their own obligations #JCPOA,” referring to the acronym of the 2015 nuclear agreement.

CNN has contacted the Iranian government authorities to get a reaction.

New intelligence

The accusations in the letter occur when US intelligence agencies and the Pentagon tracked the movement in recent weeks of several short-range Iranian ballistic missiles to Iraq, said a US official with direct knowledge of the situation.

CNN previously reported that there is new information about a possible Iranian threat against US forces and interests in the Middle East, according to several US defense and administration officials.

While some of the missiles allegedly transferred to Iraq can be classified as ballistic, the official emphasized that they are very short range, without offering more details.

The concern is that the missiles could now move to areas where they could be fired at US troops by Iran-backed militias. However, senior US military officials have recently said they do not believe that the Tehran regime will go to war against Washington.

In a related development, the official said that in the last month these militias have intensified attacks on US positions with larger rockets than had been seen before.

Iraq has been shaken by protests in recent weeks, some aimed at Iran, which has seen its influence increase in its neighboring country substantially in recent years amid the fall of the United States. Tehran asked the Iraqi authorities to respond “firmly and effectively” after protesters attacked the Iranian consulate in the southern city of Najaf last month.

On Sunday, Iraq's Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi said he would resign, and asked the Iraqi government to “act in the interest of Iraq; to preserve the blood of his people; and to avoid falling into a cycle of violence, chaos and devastation. ”

Iran has also seen high levels of unrest, with the government launching great repression, including the closure of the Internet for periods of time, after protests erupted over gas prices that turned into anti-government riots across the country.

- Richard Roth of CNN, Barbara Starr, Sheena McKenzie, Nada Altaher and James Griffiths contributed to this report.