Brigadier General Afshin Khajefard, head of Iran's Aviation Industries Organization (IAIO) of the Defense Ministry, said on Wednesday, "We are affected by sanctions, and the enemy is trying to ensure that the Islamic civilization is not prominent."
"The field of science and technology is one of the areas that the enemy does not want to be developed in our country," he added.
Despite the outside pressure, Iran has made significant progress in the defense industry, particularly in the production of various types of drones and missiles.
The Iranian-made drones can fly for 6 to 7 hours depending on different situations to reach their targets, Khajefard said.
Regarding Iran's Operation True Promise of April 13, an unprecedented missile and drone attack against the Israeli regime, the official said both the operation and the air defense that was deployed to deter a possible counterstrike were an exemplary military action in the air domain.
"In this operation, we actually struck the enemy in an area where we felt we might not have had full control," he noted.
The European Union (EU) on Tuesday said it had expanded its sanctions regime to target Iran’s missile industry on top of the existing restrictions on the country's drone program.
The new sanctions came a month after the Iranian Armed Forces launched the Operation True Promise against the Israeli regime in retaliation for an airstrike on Iran's diplomatic premises in Syria that killed Iranian generals.
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