Iran test-fired missiles yesterday to show it was prepared to head off any military threat, four days before the Islamic Republic is scheduled to hold rare talks with world powers worried about its nuclear ambitions.
The missile maneuvers coincide with escalating tension in Iran’s nuclear row with the West, after last week’s disclosure by Tehran that it is building a second uranium enrichment plant.
News of the nuclear facility south of Iran added a sense of urgency to a crucial meeting in Geneva on Thursday between Iranian officials and representatives of six major powers.
An Iranian official warned “fabricated Western clamor” over the new plant would negatively affect the talks at which the six powers want Iran to agree to open its facilities to inspection to prove its program is for power and not nuclear weapons.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s International Atomic Energy Agency envoy, said, referring to the six powers’ concern over the new plant: “This Western approach will have a negative impact on Iran’s negotiations with the five-plus-one countries.”
US President Barack Obama said on Saturday the discovery of the secret nuclear plant in Iran showed a “disturbing pattern” of evasion by Tehran that added urgency to its talks on Thursday with world powers.
Obama warned Iran on Friday it would face “sanctions that bite” if it did not come clean.
Earlier this month, Obama dropped a plan by the previous administration to deploy missiles in Poland that had been proposed as a shield amid concerns Iran was trying to develop nuclear warheads it could mount on long-range missiles.
Iran’s missils “give us the possibility to confront every kind of threat with a long-lasting defense deterrence,” Iranian General Hossein Salami said yesterday.
“The message of this maneuver is for some domineering countries whose intention is to create fear, to say that we are able to come up with an appropriate response to their enmity with high speed and precision,” Salami, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) air force, said on the IRGC Web site.
The IRGC launched at least two different types of short-range missiles on the exercise’s first day and also tested a multiple missile launcher, Iranian media said.
State radio said the IRGC would test-fire the Shahab 3 missile, which Iranian officials say has a range of about 2,000km, today, potentially putting Israel and US bases in the Gulf within reach. It was last tested in the middle of last year.
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