The United States announced on Sunday it has imposed new sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missile program.

The United States announced on Sunday it has imposed new sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missile program.

The US Department of the Treasury said in a statement that five Iranian citizens and a network of companies based in the United Arab Emirates and China were added to a US blacklist.

The network "obfuscated the end user of sensitive goods for missile proliferation by using front companies in third countries to deceive foreign suppliers," the statement said, adding that the five people had "worked to procure ballistic missile components for Iran."

"Iran's ballistic missile program poses a significant threat to regional and global security, and it will continue to be subject to international sanctions,” said Adam J. Szubin, acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

On October 11, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully test-fired its first guided ballistic missile dubbed Emad.

Washington slammed the test, claiming the projectile is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. It vowed to respond with more sanctions.

For its part, Iran denounced as "illegitimate” the new sanctions, with foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari insisting the missile program has no links with the nuclear issue.

"Iran's missile program has never been designed to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons," Ansari was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

He said Iran would respond by "accelerating its legal ballistic missile program and boosting defense capabilities".

Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said the new sanctions would have "no effect", telling the Fars news agency: "We will prove it in practice by unveiling new missile achievements."

Sunday’s announcement comes a day after US President Barack Obama signed an executive order lifting US economic sanctions on Iran.

Earlier, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified that Iran has implemented its commitments made in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and announced to remove international economic sanctions against the country.

Iran and the P5+1 - the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany - finalized the text of the JCPOA in Vienna, Austria, on July 14, 2015.

Under the agreement, limits are put on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for, among other things, the removal of all nuclear-related economic and financial bans against the Islamic Republic.