Iran has called a U.S. missile defense program intended to safeguard Europe against Iran a "joke of the year," the official IRNA agency reported on Monday.

Washington's missile shield project in Europe should be called a"joke of the year" since Iranian missiles can not reach Europe, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani told IRNA on Sunday.

Larijani stressed that Europe is the most important commercial partner of Iran and there is no even the slightest evidence to support the U.S. claim.

"One might reasonably suppose that the U.S. is following a bigger plan and thus resort to such propaganda to divert the public opinion of their other objectives," he said.

The deployment of a U.S. missile defense system at the gate of Russia would also make significant changes to the current Russia-U. S. military balance in Europe and the East-West equilibrium in conventional weapons, according to analysts.

U.S. President George W. Bush defended on Friday U.S. plan to deploy the missile defense shield in East Europe while trying to soothe Russia's concern over the disputed missile defense program.

"It's aimed at rogue regimes that would use a missile to achieve political objective or to create unrest," Bush said of the U.S. plan in an interview with foreign press.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that the planned deployment of the U.S. anti-ballistic missile components in Europe "is turning the continent into a tinderbox."

Source: Xinhua