MOSCOW, August 13. /TASS/. The Iranian Defense Ministry has unveiled a next-generation Fateh Mubeen ballistic missile capable of evading radars and hitting targets with pinpointed accuracy, the news agency Tasnim reported on Monday.

The presentation ceremony was attended by Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami who congratulated the army and military designers with the completion of the work on the new missile.

As Hatami said, today the Iranian defense industry "is capable of fulfilling practical needs of the Armed Forces by turning ideas into products in a short span of time."

The Tasnim news agency gave no details of the missile’s characteristics in its report.

US media outlets reported on Friday that the US intelligence had detected Iran’s first test of the Fateh ballistic missile this year. The missile was launched from the base of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (the elite unit of the Iranian armed forces) in the country’s southeast. The missile flew more than 160 km over the Strait of Hormuz to a practice range in a desert on Iranian territory.

Iran has been developing its missile program since the 1990s. The Islamic Republic has achieved substantial progress in developing ballistic missiles. At the same time, Tehran refuses to hold negotiations on limiting its missile industry development, arguing that ballistic missiles are operational in the armies of Iran’s rivals in the region.

Washington has numerously criticized Iran for its missile program development. US President Donald Trump made a decision on March 13 to extend by 12 months the US sanctions imposed on Iran over the development of ballistic missiles, the support of international terrorism and the violation of human rights.