Iran on Thursday denounced U.S. plans to impose new sanctions on the Islamic Republic for a recent ballistic missile test it conducted. The reported financial sanctions would be the first since Iran reached a nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers earlier this year.

“As we have declared to the American government … Iran’s missile program has no connection to the [nuclear] agreement,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said, according to state media. “Iran will resolutely respond to any interfering action by America against its defensive programs,” said Jaber Ansari, who added that new sanctions would be “arbitrary and illegal.”

Following a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday that the Treasury Department is preparing to issue financial sanctions on nearly a dozen companies and individuals allegedly involved in the development of the missile program, the Obama administration confirmed that it is looking into sanctioning Iran but offered no details.