Leader’s Aide Confident about Iran’s Future Self-Sufficiency in Maritime Industry

A senior aide to the Iranian Supreme Leader expressed confidence that the country will reach self-sufficiency in the maritime industry in the near future irrespective of the western sanctions.

“For sure, we will reach self-sufficiency in all fields of the maritime industry in the near future if the country continues the current pace of progress,” Senior Military Aide to the Iranian Supreme Leader Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi said during a visit to Chabahar Maritime University, Southeast of Iran.

He lauded the great advancements made by the Iranian researchers in maritime technologies despites the current sanctions and pressures imposed on the country by the West, and said that such achievements render the West’s maritime bans on Iran fruitless and make the West’s equations in this regard meet failure.

In November 2012, Iranian Deputy Minister of Science for Research and Technology Mohammad Mehdi Nejad-Nouri announced that the country plans to include South Pole in its maritime researches in a five-year plan.

Nejad-Nouri pointed to the presence of many countries in the Antarctica for conducting research in the South Pole and using its resources, and said, “Iran’s presence in the pole is necessary for our country’s and the regional states’ national interests; therefore, a five-year plan has been devised in order to expand our presence in the South Pole.”

He reminded that Iran’s sea borders in Northern and Southern parts of the country stretch for 6,000 km and as a “maritime power” it should be active in Antarctica research.

Iran has recently decided to expand its presence in the South Pole with the aim of conducting more research projects.

Managing-Director of Iran’s National Institute for Oceanography (INIO) Vahid Chegini had said in August that the country is building an oceangoing research vessel to conduct exploratory missions in the South Pole.

He added that the Defense Industries Organization of the Iranian ministry of defense has started construction of the vessel since spring 2011.

Chegini stated that body of the vessel is made of steel and will be built by November 2012.